Alecto's Ophelia

Lenny Bruce is not afraid

The imagery in this still is breathtaking, but you almost have to be a still yourself see it. To bear witness we can't bring ourselves into the space. Therefore, be a tree, or in this case be bit of cracking wallpaper or a branch on that tree through the window.

A woman wrote about wanting to watch a non-domesticated animal as it approached the parameters of her household. If she so much as twitched, the animal would hit the 'you never saw me I'm not real' eject button. ~finis~

She wrote, 'be a tree'. 

A tree is benign; a known entity, a nearly inseparable part of the acceptable world. A tree is benign by the fact of it not being you. 

Maybe I didn't really need to spell that out, but about 80% of us are literal as shit and that first paragraph just won't fly without some sort of explanation.

Be a tree.

Anyway, maybe you recognize the still. I grabbed it from a video that was posted on YouTube, March 16, 2009 but the track was recorded and released in 1987 on an album titled Document. Lately it's had a bit of a resurgence. Two days ago it was at #26 on the iTunes chart. That's some bit of history. 

At the end of this post are two videos, the first is a 4:38 message from Michael Stipe and the second is the 4:03 video. To this day I find I'm still singing when the music stops. Something to think about, the music stopping.

The message from Mr. Stipe is worth watching (or I wouldn't have posted it) and it is a conversation with the viewer, not speech, mandate, or reprimand. A conversation. 

But watch his body language which is most telling; he is scared. Really, really scared. 

As are we all, conscious or otherwise.

But but but but there is always going to be a but, no?

How we handle our fear dictates our fate. It always has; I think that must be some physics law. Has to be.

One of my favorite stories, which has become a metaphor for many things, is about a part of learning to drive with which I had a terrifying struggle. I am also aware that of all things terrifying, this is what took ten years off my father's life.

My driving was fine for the most part. I stayed on the road, kissing the curb maybe only once or twice. I learned to avoid potholes because my mother had rightful concerns about the overall condition of her vehicle. I can't say I mastered the 5 speed transmission prior to my test but it was good enough to go and not strip the gears. 

I did have a bit of a lead foot. Topic for another day.

The problem was oncoming traffic. I'd see it coming at me and suddenly the car would be on or near the yellow line and sometimes a bit over which is probably when my father's first yet undetected stroke occurred. Cars coming at me turned into me driving directly into oncoming traffic.

I never once hit anyone or thing during that time but there were a couple of close calls and I just couldn't figure out why.

In the back of the school smoking corral on a Monday morning I discuss this particular issue from my seat on the pavement. I'm sitting on the asphalt and everyone else is carefully standing upwind. On Monday mornings I light the soles of my earth shoes on fire which results in magnificent three foot flames and noxious black smoke. I let them burn for about two minutes and then stand up and walk to the curb. The size nine rubber footprints are probably still on the asphalt behind Glastonbury High School.

You did need to know that.

A fifteen year old suggested not looking directly at the oncoming traffic.

Isn't that where we all go? Right toward what we're looking at?

Crowd shuffles about and the consensus is, yes, yes we do, metaphorically or otherwise. 

Don't the really bad things that happen to us happen because we're afraid and focused on the really bad things? Like a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Crowd shuffles and the consensus is, yes, sometimes, but we don't always see it coming at us.

Well that's not an issue of looking at it then, is it? That's an issue of a house falling on the witch.

Crowd shuffles, someone takes out a bowl, packs and lights it, and passes to the left. I stand up and walk off the fire and smoke so that I, also, can return to the circle. 

Pause: I stand up and walk off the fire and smoke so that I, also, can return to the circle. Let's parse that statement. 

1. I stand up -- of my own volition, I stand up
2. and walk off the fire and smoke -- of my own volition, I remove, cease, and desist what is harmful to self and others
3. so that I, also, -- it is not just about me
4. can return to the circle -- a post of its own, seriously. We can work with the obvious for now

And you thought this was a driving metaphor. 

I am afraid. I am not afraid of getting sick. I am afraid of making someone else sick. I am afraid of my children getting sick. I am afraid for my daughter pulling double shifts on the psych floor of an already overcrowded hospital. I am afraid for my son who has probably stopped playing and singing in bars because the bars have closed or shut down. But I am still afraid. I am afraid for my youngest who until last week still took emergency sitting jobs, especially to allow nurses and doctors to return to work. And then she got sick. Not too sick. No fever. But sick all the same and I was sick with the same and the fear of causing harm settled in. 

I am frightened for my dad and for S, and for C in the isolated village 300 miles north. I am frightened that I may not see them for a very long time. I am frightened that S will have no relief and that my dad may be significantly compromised by the time I can go. I am frightened that he may not remember me. I should be frightened for C but it's often very hard to be frightened for C because that woman is about as feisty as they come. In the back of my mind I am.

I remove, cease, and desist what is harmful to self and others.

So that I, also, can return to the circle.

I remove, cease, and desist what is harmful to self and others.

So that they, also, can return to the circle. 

I am a bit freaked about about the supply chain and maybe more freaked about about the percentage of the population that is not freaked out about the supply chain. And it goes on and on.

1. Wash your hands for 20 seconds many times a day but mostly before and after you have contact with anything or anyone outside of your immediate household
2. Do not empty the shelves. That includes the liquor store. We walked down the street yesterday to make sure my friend Peter was still open and functioning and while Peter wasn't in that day, we were told, looking at the mostly empty shelves, that there'd been a run on the liquor store. It's repetitive, she said. We can't keep up.
3. Be incredibly kind to anyone in service. Incredibly kind. Do not make the woman behind the register touch your purchases if she is ungloved and you can get the SKUs pointed at the scanner. Bring your own bag and fill it yourself. 
4. Do stock your shelves with non-perishables, a little bit at a time. Take stock.
5. Look out for your neighbors while staying the hell away from them. Food can be left on the front porch. Or booze, if that's what you have most of. 
6. GET YOUR NEWS FROM THE SOURCE. I believe I'm wasting my breath but I'm going to keep saying it. 
7. Do not allow the words 'China Flu' or 'Kung Flu', or anything like it to fall from your lips. You know why. Clearly, the circle we wish to return to is a lot bigger than your dinky little church (metaphor, simmer down) and we are all a part of at least one dinky little church.

That's it. I'll come back and talk about other bits later. Stuff that isn't quite so incendiary.

Be a tree. Observe.

Go here first:

Michael Stipe

Play this as many times as your household will tolerate. 1987. Holy crap.

I love you.

Alecto

 

Same as it ever was

Just missed the bastard's face. His freaky little paws will burn for days.

I thought Sompo was surreal. Three weeks shy of twelve months of:

• Who hired me?
• Why am I here?
• Can somebody tell me what you all want? Exactly. With great precision. Cause all I got is a growing list of: DON'T TOUCH THAT!
• and for the love of dog, never leave your cube!

That's what comes out of a fast and furious recruit; no idea what I was getting into and not a clue why I was there by day three. 

Here we go again with the pseudonyms:

At the Pretty Big and Reasonably Global Tech Consulting Company here's how the song went (so far)

• Called on a Friday, interviewed with desperate solutions guy 
• Interviewed on Monday by the PMO, some other guy, and the Architect (LEGEND) (can't decide what to call her yet, one or the other)
• Offer for good chunk more than I asked maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday, but definitely before Wednesday because I had a kickoff meeting on Tuesday
• Contract received and signed Friday
• Start date following Wednesday (now I REALLY wish I'd sucked it up and started that Monday)
• Between Wednesday and Friday frantically onboarded myself which included the bare minimum to be legally employed but not enough to be paid (those forms, you know those forms, everything that comes AFTER the notarized I9)
• Wednesday, most of the day, backed up and upgraded 2015,4 MacBook Pro from whatever it was in July 2016 when I bought it (shut up) to the most current macOS 
• Because 365, that's why
• Thursday, most of the day installing 365 and establishing access from my BYOM (bring your own machine, I turned down the 4 inch company tool for a screen I could see) to an insane number of company portals. Got to know IT pretty well
• Friday, most of the day trying to figure out why I couldn't install Microsoft Project on a Mac and then researching my macOS and Windows 10 play nice on the same machine options
• Saturday, made the decision to not install something I didn't understand without support
• Sunday, remembered how to pack 4 days of professional wear into a meant for 2 day hard side carry on
• Sunday, dropped at departures by daughter, 11 miles from my home
• The rest of Sunday, I don't want to talk about it
• Monday through Thursday: What even IS that?!
• Friday, hiding and not completing what I promised HR
• Saturday and Sunday, I have no memory of
• Monday thru Thursday: You people are shitting me, right?
• Friday: up at 5:15, no point staying in bed. Got paid though.

It's not really the same and it's hardly unexpected and this time I actually know why I was hired so fast. In the Statement of Work which the client signed about 20 minutes after my hire, it is clearly stated that the PBandRGTCC would provide a fully dedicated technical project manager and I was, in Solution Guy's eyes, the only one who can hold her own. 

Hold my own what, exactly? 

I think I'm getting to that. 

But it's 7:32 and I've got onboarding to do and I haven't bonded enough with the Architect to determine if she's some sort of demon let out of the bottle to feed on PMs while architecting glorious things for the customer. If so, I'm good with that. Just give me the road map called:

How NOT to piss off the Architect. 

Don't tell me what not to do, actually, give me a bulleted list of what I can do. Exactly. In writing. 

This certainly isn't my first rodeo. 

I like many people. Even the Architect. I did not care for many of my Sompo peeps. 

I love my boss. Seriously, I love my boss. I'm just not sure he's got the power to keep my lungs intact all the way over in London. Solution Guy has to do that. I like him too except the bugger can be damned evasive. 

This is how it went while he was on his way out of the client office on Tuesday, leaving me at the mercy of the Architect:

I just want you to know this is going to be unlike any project you've ever managed. You're going to have to tread lightly and be soft. Can you be soft?

Define soft. And also, please tell me again what you think being like a chameleon means? Because I think it means turning the same color as your surroundings. 

Being a chameleon means disappearing into the background.

You want a Project Manager to disappear into the background?

Yes. We can't lose her.

Gotcha. 

The Architect is on vacation in Iceland this week. But not really. I've been yelled at twice (by email) and hit with a 2x4 once. I can't tell if there were nails involved or not. I escalated it to both men.

How do you want me to respond to this? 

I wonder if they know I'll most likely do whatever they tell me to do. As long as it's in writing. 

I know they don't actually know. 

And here I am again, same as it ever was...

"Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again into silent water
Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground"

 

The Solution: Install Parallels and run Windows 10 in the VM alongside the OS. Do NOT Bootcamp on your machine unless you want to have to boot back and forth between Op systems. Parallels is pretty good as long as you remember you can't drag or copy anything out of the window. 

The State of the Union

It started out as a comment that never got posted because it was too long. Yep. You read that correctly. Too long. Unfortunately that copy/paste business failed me entirely and this is a do over. This is for the best as I don't edit my comments for coherency all that often.

Shadow remarked that I've seemed unhappy lately and I could hear the hesitation because the word unhappy might not be the most accurate euphemism for rip shit furious but it will work. It's also entirely possible that Shadow is absolutely literal, in which case this is my hearing, not speaking. 

Either way, it warranted a response of some sort if only to acknowledge that I'm cared about which is when the response, paragraph breaks notwithstanding, went down way too many rabbit holes by way of explanation. 

So here I am in full-ish control of my faculties (it's early and I haven't mainlined enough coffee yet) to shed light on the last several months. It will be difficult to avoid going too far back because our responses are informed by much more than the current event(s). Unless we've not come all the way through the birth canal yet. 

In Which Alecto Promptly Jumps Off that Cliff of 'going too far back' Right Off:

When my dad left, which was maybe a year after I left, my brother came directly to my place of work because he had nowhere else to go and he was wide-eyed; all shock and terror. I worked at the Burger King which is no longer a Burger King on the Post Road in Westport. Shift Supervisors in their double knit, grease saturated uniforms don't get to walk off the floor unless something is on fire. He was on fire. I was allotted ten minutes. Fair enough.

Why you and I got into the Way Back Machine:

I sat in a booth with my baby brother in 1983 and I don't believe I've ever seen him looking that way then or since. Not to mean it doesn't or hasn't happened; I just haven't witnessed Jack's world falling apart. Jack's world falling apart is only subjective on the outside of the box. On the inside of the box in which Jack lives (knock on your own box periodically, see how it's doing) a good chunk of the earth was just gone and the rest of it was on fire. That is what his face said and also the tenor of his voice which was most disturbing of all.  

This is what I did not say:

1. It's OK, Jack, we'll get through this.
2. Oh, sweetie, this is awful, where is Mom right now?
3. Take a breath...
4. Any or all of the above and much, much more.

This is what I did say:

1. What the fuck?! 
2. OK. I'm going to take care of this. I'll bring him back home and everything will be OK. I promise. 

Well of course I did. This is what I do. I fix things, I get things done, because if I don't do these things, then who the hell will?!

(Florkow has also mastered this trick but healthy of not, along with our skill sets it makes us highly marketable)

Having shifted into triage mode I chose to do three things in this order (odd choice if you think about the original promise):

1. I put the burden of taking care of my mother entirely on myself. (Sorry, Mom, that wasn't particularly responsible on my part)
2. I took care of my brother inasmuch as he could be taken care of at that point, having gone a bit off the rails.
3. I took care of my father because he'd temporarily moved in with a guy by the name of Oily Al and you really do not want to hear the rest. I moved Dad into the spare room in the house I lived in with three or four other people at the time. I don't believe I gave them much warning or any choice in the matter. I just installed him. Good thing he's charming. 

You don't get to do much thinking about your own stuff when you're doing stuff like the above but here's what did happen eventually.

I too felt as if a good chunk of the earth had packed up its stuff and headed for Mars. I also felt the pre-existing condition called The Hole in My Middle get a lot worse. From Paul Simon's Graceland:

"And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow"

I'm going to be hearing that all day; great song. The album, Graceland, wasn't released until 1986 but I recognized that stanza right off. I didn't so much hear it as feel it blow through the window in my heart.

In my head, I hear this, from The Boy in the Bubble (same album) right after I hear the stanza above:

"The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry, don't cry"

Recognition and release.

The metaphor is like so:

There is a linen closet in the house in my head. When the door is opened, what I used to see even after the rape, my own exit from the family home, and all that came before, was top to bottom, many, many shelves packed full of neatly folded sheets and towels. All of these things representing the foundation of my belief system. The way the world works or the way the world is meant to work according to Alecto's life experiences to date.

Odd, don't you think, that given the chaos of my first eighteen years that closet would be so orderly and sure of itself?

Recognition and release? Not yet.

Like the corner of the earth taking an extended holiday, the shelves bent and cracked and spilled every neatly folded thing onto the floor at my feet. A mangled pile of beliefs and judgements. How's your own closet looking these days? I think of that closet and its contents like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain directing and dictating the how and the why except when he's got no answers and says simply: Go Away! (or bring me a broom, whatever).

I sat in front of the pile and sorted through the debris, one piece at a time. Here is the big one, a sheet wrapped around half a ton of pea gravel:

Divorce does not happen in our family. Divorce has never happened in our family. It cannot and must not happen in our family. The world will end before there is a divorce in Alecto's family.

Oh. 

I could have gotten up from that pile and walked away. I could have shoveled it back into the closet and slammed the door shut. Both of these things I've done more times in my life than are countable. I didn't do it then. Even a man breaking through the safety of my home on a WEEKNIGHT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHILE I WAS DOING HOMEWORK (not sure why that last part is relevant but it is) and tearing my life's fabric away from my bones did not shake the foundation on which I held all things sacred.

But this did. 

In the end I decided what I needed to do was examine all of it. Examine each sheet and towel and rubber ducky for what I thought might be right and true, discard the things that turned out to be not truths (which is not always the same as a lie), fold up and put away the things that still made sense, and then recognize those things of my own making that belonged on the shelves built at my family of orientation. Like a dowry I took the closet into my family of procreation. 

Fast forward.

I am not unhappy. Neither am I happy as a general state of being. I just am. I have a friend from high school who posts no less than four memes per day on his Facebook feed suggesting in the nicest possible way that all we need to do to be happy is focus on the nice things in life.

This is like the jellyfish story. 

The man walks by a boy on a beach covered in starfish that have been washed up in a storm.
There is a boy on the shore throwing one starfish after another back into the sea.
The man notes the sheer number of starfish and suggests to the boy that this is all a bit pointless.
And the boy tells the man that it isn't pointless to this one, as he throws one more into the water.

Great parable or whatever.

NO!!!!

Swear to god, one more person tells me to focus on the starfish and I'm going to sit them down, straight away in the Children's Memorial, Yad Vashem, except I'd have to get them on a Jerusalem bound plane so maybe just the video. I'll tell you something about this. When I went to Yad Vashem, I went in alone. Not a single other soul aside from David who was silent as the dead. When I went in, the process was just beginning and I walked into blackness. When I walked out, into the bright sun and the view of the city, I did not feel hopeful. I dropped to my knees and vomited. Watch this for me, please. It's short. I'll wait for you on the other side.

Not a one of those 1.5 million children is a starfish. True enough, people were rescued, people did get out, and people survived but tell that to the other six million and their families. These are not starfish and also that video doesn't do it justice but it's as close as I could find. 

The gouges in the walls of the tunnel as you approach the door represent claw marks of the not starfish trying to get out alive.

My point?

I can't unsee this anymore. I can't unsee any of it. I'm also aware that there isn't any point giving you, or anyone else a list of the atrocities occurring in the world today or the atrocities we inflict on each other and I'm talking about a World View.  

I can't unsee what our government is and probably always has been. I can't unsee what we say and do to each other. I can't unsee all of the those funerals at the end of the 20th century and the way those men died. I can't unsee our hypocrisy as a community.

Each blanket, towel, and sheet that has fallen off the very top shelf, the shelf that never did tip over...each blanket, towel, and sheet, a tangled mass before me, picked up one by one, discarded as currently too much and I'll come back to you. Each of these spread out like an ocean of lies. The sort we tell ourselves and then we tell the world.

Unhappy? Nope. Not really.

Rip shit angry? Yes, that is one thing. Another thing, watching and listening to people around me deny and then justify. That's where the hopeless comes from. Mostly though, I am grieving for a belief system that never really existed. 

This is where I stop because the post is meant to be an explanation, not a platform. Not today.

I have a present for us though. "...these are the days of miracle and wonder... don't cry baby don't cry don't cry don't cry..."

If you know it, sing it LOUD!

Recognition and Release.

(this post is entirely not edited. sorry. late.)

The Rest of the Story

It's 1977. I am thirteen years old and sitting in a hay loft, heels toward the floor. They're swinging like a metronome because I am doing by damned best to focus on my math homework. I cannot.

Below me are barn things specifically related to horses, two of which are a radio and a light. It's always nice to have those things when you personally are in the barn, but they aren't really for you. They keep the horses from burning the place down.

Sometime in the vicinity of 5 PM, a man named Paul Harvey came on the radio. Knowing what I know now, I have trouble reconciling a 'conservative journalist' with a program on NPR which is surely what I was listening to. 

I haven't been able to connect the dots between Paul Harvey the Conservative Journalist, Rush Limbaugh the Conservative I don't Know What the Hell to Call him, NPR as it was in the 70s and NPR as it is today. Can't be linear with this one so I make the leap because I was there. 

I hung on every word that man spoke. I waited for the punchline like a giant labrador might wait for a treat; whole body wagging, tail off the floor, but sitting nevertheless. I don't much remember all he said and I don't know that I could come up with a punchline or anything near like it. What's left is the visceral memory of astonishment every single time. You can chalk it up to an unsuspecting thirteen year old but that doesn't explain the rest of the nation's collective fascination. 

The Rest of the Story. What it means: A big chunk of life is most likely not going to end the way you thought it might. Good, bad, or indifferent.

303 words to preface an 863 word story.

I don't think I'm past the gag period but I think I can be oblique enough not to care.

On November 4 I was finally handed those walking papers I'd been expecting with about twice the hush up now money which literally made my Monday. The HR lady asked me how I felt. One word.

Relieved.

That was just god awful and not a damn thing I could do about it short of quitting and I don't like doing that in under twelve months. 

Between that and the mad money, I could eek out six months or so, unless I decided to pay the $1100 per month Cobra fee to keep my insurance but I did anyway. Just in case. I don't have the bill for outstanding receivables from the walk-in care center where I more or less crawled when my neck got so bad I was sleeping on hardwood. I figure you have that much blood drawn, that much time with an NPA, a shit ton of x-rays followed up with whatever the hell she shot into my arm one milliliter at a time. I'm told the strong stuff has to go in slowly. I don't have that bill yet but I'm guessing what was covered has covered the Cobra to date. 

Between November 4 and December 16 I performed the equivalent of lying face down on the living room floor marveling at the ease with which air flowed in and out of my lungs. Oddly enough, I no longer felt much like vomiting. On the other hand, I stopped walking 8 - 12 miles a day (not a joke) because I didn't have to get up every two hours and walk off a murderous rage. 

On December 16 I called THE RECRUITER. To be fair, I was speaking with other recruiters but I wasn't moving with any sense of urgency. On December 16 the button popped and I went looking for the Job Ninja. He was there.

On January 4 I had what looked like at least three options with a fourth in the wings. I chose the job with a gazillion red flags. I had no intention of taking the job but when a recruiter tells you to take the interview, you take the interview. I accepted the job as a temp to perm just in case I wanted an out. 

It took four weeks to get to the point where I had a contract to read. It was an MSA, Master Services Agreement which is given to the recruiting company by the client. Since I was a direct pay, I got the MSA. I didn't want an MSA, I wanted the SOW, Statement of Work. I read it anyway. All of it. 

Some contracts should be read word for word. There were a couple of problems which could probably be addressed but then there was this:

(paraphrased) We (the company) will pay you (the other company) Net 30. We (the company) will pay you, (the other company) Net 30 after we (the company) have been paid by them (the client).

That would be a big old Nope. 

A big hole opened up and I fell right in. On the way down I shouted up at the sky:

FUCK YOU, JOB NINJA! FUCK YOU AND THE COW YOU RODE IN ON. dammit.

Face down on the floor again, sans air.

I stayed there for a bit and then called Clayton back.

Clayton. I have to work.

Alecto, I know and I'm really sorry but we're going to find you something, I promise.

(Clayton was as green as they came when he got me)

Clayton. I'll restructure my resume again. 

Alecto. That's a really good idea.

Clayton did good. I don't know what the hell he did because he doesn't really know anyone yet and he's being fed scraps but on February 7 (that's just a few days after the floor opened) he had me on the phone with a guy leading a team into an 11 month project. It was a great conversation; I really enjoyed the shit out of him. I got a text message immediately afterward letting me know I'd be interviewing with three others on Monday (the 10th). 

The last sentence was:

Really looking forward to working with you. 

My first day is tomorrow. February 19. I ship out with the rest of the team on Sunday, February 23. To Milwaukee. Jeeze.

That's not the rest of the story. 

.............

.................

....................

He asked a question which should have been asked of the recruiter who speaks and negotiates for me. He didn't wait. He asked about salary requirements and feeling just a little bit sick about the last couple of months it took me a bit to get it out.

$xxx is my bottom line, it's the end of the table for me (you NEVER start that way)

Great! he said. Let's make that up that to, well, bigger. Sign on bonus rate for my job band. 

Nobody does that. Nobody takes your bottom line and gives it a substantial bump.

Nobody except maybe the Job Monkey. Peeps, let me present:

And that is the rest of the story. 

Timely, right now.

 

 

 

Noam Chomsky and the New American Curriculum

Professor Chomsky begins at minute 8, although I found the introductory speaker entirely worth her allotted 7:52.

Noam Chomsky Lectures on Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond

The lecture is exactly 2 hours in total and if any of you make it through the entire thing without turning blue and passing out, or, alternatively, without plotting to bomb the libtards, you get a badge:

 

Yes. I made that just for you and you know what? No sarcasm intended whatsoever. Can't say that about the rest though...

There is an entire series of Professor Chomsky speaking on multiple topics, which in the end are all the same topic. Just depends on where you hide your hot spots.

This idea popped into my head during a recording of one of his lectures on the survival of capitalism and plutocracy - something about the intentional manufacturing of Stupid Americans.

Stupid Centrist Thoughts:

The following should be required in all United States public classrooms as well as any home schools wishing to remain accredited by a public school system. These two new subjects, taught appropriately, to grades K - 6 with AP electives offered beginning in the 8th grade should be implemented no later than Fall Semester 2020. There will be no additional ramp up time. 

1. Fundamental Creationism taught from the King James version of the Old Testament by a Gender non-specific Reformed Jew
2. Fundamental Atheism* taught by a Closeted Fundamental Christian with diagnosed and documented gender identity confusion, preferably cis-female

*The Fundamental Atheism curricula and tests for grades K - 6 will be written by five or more of the Top 50 Atheists in the World Today (GREAT effing list, by the way) and edited by Marilyn Manson. 

All teachers of both classes for grades K - 6 will be interviewed and hired (or not) by Professor Noam Chomsky. He's up at MIT when not on the lecture circuit; shouldn't be hard to find.

These two classes will be subject to core curriculum requirements which will include class materials and will be a significant percentage of the Federally Mandated Testing (funding evaluation)

Also, all American flags should be removed from the classroom as well as any existing portrait of any American president. Ever.

Also, any student caught anywhere on school grounds uttering the words 'I pledge allegiance', in that order, will be zapped with a cattle prod (or accidentally shot by an overzealous teacher with a new handgun) which are carried by inner city teachers today (they are, right? nobody made that shit up?) but will be distributed to all public school personnel prior to the aforementioned curriculum changes. OR

Said student can elect to remove themselves from the classroom until they have satisfactorily proven that they absolutely, unswervingly, till death do us part eternally, ACTUALLY pledge allegiance to said flag which isn't in the room anyway. In order to prove actual allegiance, the student will compose and defend a twenty page single spaced mini-dissertation. The student shall have one week to complete and defend the dissertation. There may be some lenience if the student isn't functionally capable of writing and defending a mini-dissertation but that should only be required for grade K, or grade 1 with special circumstances.  

Due to the anticipated nationwide fallout, it is highly recommended that all teachers, regardless of belief, faith, demographics, politics, felony history, geographic location, or ability to move much more than Stephen Hawking, be issued school board approved firearms. There is no budget for training. YouTube links to the following will be distributed before Fall Semester, 2020. Firearm distribution can begin at any time but must be complete before the first day of school.

• The Care and Feeding of Your New Firearm
• Don't Point That Thing at Me!'
• Your Firearm + Your nationality + Your Location = What to Expect When You're Expecting a Gun
• Keeping Your Ammo Dry
• You, Your Gun, and the Local Po-Po: Developing and Nurturing Life-long Relationships 

Note: There is no budget for testing. All the money was handed over to Professor Chomsky this morning. A retainer of sorts.

Dog DAMN! I feel so much better.

The screaming started at 9:52

What It Is 

 

1. Late Term Abortion is a political construct. Technically it doesn't exist
2. It is nearly impossible to find statistics on something called Late Pregnancy Termination
   1. Think of it like protecting a whistle blower or an entire herd of them from a lynch mob
   2. Think, Shirley Jackson; pretty much anything she's published  
3. It is nearly impossible to define Late Pregnancy Termination although every one of us can find at least one article from a respectable publishing entity that supports our very clear definitions and beliefs; the ones we live and die by
4. The Federal Government is pushing to define Late Term Abortion as anything past 14 weeks
   
   1. This is where I blow out a couple of vocal chords and rethink my current stance on gun control
5. A Late Pregnancy Termination is generally defined as having passed into the state of viability which is not 20 weeks. Currently it is 24 weeks and even that's dicey
6. Late Pregnancy Terminations are tragic at their very nature
7. 90% of the voting population hasn't one single accurate clue, but that voting population has swallowed a whole lotta crap. That, in its very nature is tragic (pulled that number out of my ass. but what if I'm right?!)
8. Supposition: If I were to compare, side by side, the names of the US Citizens who are firm in their stand for the Death Penalty, sorted them by last and then first names, lined them up side by side, I might have a 75% match. Supposition. If I took that completely groundless and un-researched (anybody picking up the sarcasm?) data and lined it up with NRA members...should probably stop there but maybe you get the point. Maybe 

I only picked that because it's the topic, abortion in general, that keeps me out of rallies of any sort. It's been suggested that use of a deadly weapon is a felony as is attempted murder and believe it or not, on purpose murder. I should also point out that the deadly weapon would probably be a 2x4. 

Here are the two primary responses I hear about abortion in general but we'll stick with Late Pregnancy Termination. I apologize in advance for the language as well as the use of a word or words which are no longer permissible for damn good reason. 

1. O.M.G! That fucking cunt bag slut will burn in hell! I hope she dies in the process. I hope she gets the electric chair. (you really can't make this shit up)
2. Jesus H. Christ, that poor family. What the hell happened? Can I do anything? What do they need?

Numbers 1 and 2 are the extremes on a scale of 1 to 10 but they aren't so different from the woman who didn't seem to see anything wrong with flags and memorials from the Civil war remaining exactly where they were and the man who screamed SLAVER!!! At the top of his metaphorical lungs because he no shit could not take it one more second. Personally, I'm ready to burn those flags, every one of them. My empathy ran out a while ago but I haven't quite gotten to the extreme. 

Irrelevant. Today.

Elizabeth had been in Albany to testify at an Education hearing. She left NYC at 6 AM with a busload of Hunter students, returned at 8:30 PM, caught the southbound 8:58, and located her mother's vehicle in a dark rainy parking lot at 9:53.

MOM! Stop that! We're going to get arrested!

MOM! Maybe you should pull over, there are cops everywhere tonight.

(there is always a strong police presence at the Chappaqua station at night)

Elizabeth, I'm driving in a straight line at 5 mph which more than meets the requirement at this station.

You're scaring me.

I'm not screaming. I'm just crying.

But I could hear you screaming, that's how I found you. 

I should have just turned the radio off when I got in the car. It was set at the local NPR station when I started the engine and so I guess I got the punchline in the car. 

The radio was still on, but at very low volume. She reached over and turned it off.

Mom. I think you've had enough. 

This, as it turns out, isn't necessarily true. While I missed what I think of as the Rush Limbaugh debacle, I also missed Nancy Pelosi shredding a document I would have incinerated on the White House steps. I missed the look on her face but I saw it later. She's been so thoroughly trashed, I've finally found the humor. She couldn't come close to his everyday demeanor if she tried. But you know, she's a fucking cunt bag slut and will burn in hell. So there's that.

But Elizabeth was right. I'd had too much. I did, however, have a list of shit to fact check. If I'm going to start screaming, I guess I'd better check my facts.

Where to get facts. That's a hard one because there are very few sources that directly track what we have and what we have not done at a governmental level. We publish the things we believe to be true and we publish the things we wish to be true. We listen to and read the things which support our already existing beliefs. Even when we believe we are reading something from an uncomfortable to us source, we are lying to ourselves. 

In all seriousness, I have a really hard time even looking at the Fox News logo.

There is one place you can go which is still in the public domain. I'm not sure it hasn't been doctored but it's got a shit ton of information which is far more relevant than anything else. Why? 

Because Gov'ment. That's why. We are still required to put a lot of that shit up in the public domain. I'm going to guess no more than .001% of the population even knows it's there. I put journalists and editors in another category. Many of them do know it's there. But.

I did know about the statistical government databases because as soon as I heard they were being pulled offline, I started pulling them down. I don't know that we'll ever see the full detail of the EPA reports again. I believe the same of the space statistics. I believe this because having taken, ostensibly, the same data dumps two years apart, the second was significantly smaller. I gave up after a dozen retries. 

I hadn't, in my life, even considered looking for details of our federal fiscal budget. 

Well, it's out there. It's out there and I have it. It's out there and there's a whole lot of other things out there too. I'm pretty sure I can still get the bills that made it all the way through with their addendum attached and bills which did not. I'm betting I can still get extensive senatorial detail right down to how many votes you did not bother to show up for and your voting history in total. 

Not having the extensive free time I might have expected, I haven't read a whole lot of it yet. There was a thing that jumped out and slapped me across the face, so I looked at that. 

I haven't pulled this together from the FY2020 budget yet, and also, this is FY2018 but I'm kind of thinking it won't have been cut much.

From The Facts of on Medicare Spending and Financing - Published August 20, 2019

Our economy looks AWSOME! I'm assuming that the 21% of our national budget is indeed going to American Citizens who are either disabled, retired, or children (CHIP). 

That 24% makes me super nervous though. At almost one quarter of our national budget, Social Security is failing rapidly. There are more reasons for the rapid decline than just the number of boomers leaving the workplace (look 'em up, I'm not a publishing source).

I think I just realized why the definition of boomers was changed (anybody notice that?). If those of us who were the start of Gen X have been pushed back into the generation with fathers/grandfathers having fought the great and righteous war, then the boomers are still working.

Also, will continue to work far longer than our parents, the original boomers. That or weather proof your cardboard box.

If I published the percentage of my paycheck, or even the dollar amount, that went into the Red, Dark Blue, and Medium Blue pie slices it would I'd most likely start screaming again. 

I believe very strongly in those three boxes but I'm getting REALLY tired of being called a Socialist for it. I do understand that Social Security is an entitlement but it is not an entitlement the way we think of that word today. It is an entitlement because I put 50k into those funds in 2016. That was a self employed year. Figure it out. I almost hit the 50% (overall) tax bracket AND that was a year I could still write off my mortgage interest and property taxes.  

Listen Up: If any of you believe the numbers in the paragraph above come anywhere near the 2% or 5% even bucket, look up the tax laws. Once you've got those numbers you can work backwards. Once you have those numbers do this:

APPLY THE COST OF LIVING FACTOR. You all know what that is. It's the cost of gas, the cost of a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, rent on a 1200 square foot apartment (I'm laughing so hard I just choked), the median cost of an actual mortgaged home price, the price of public transportation, oh hell, there's a whole list but it is a factor. Yes, yes my net hourly bill rate fell on the floor that year.

Ah, for 2016 the COL Factor should be obtained from Weston, CT or from Southern Fairfield County if you can't get that close (but you should).

You know, the place with the house I left behind after 13 years. 

So I get cranky about some things. I might not be so cranky if I didn't feel so god damned cunt punched. 

So that's it. Just examples. Scariness is knowing how much more is under the rug of this tired-assed fifty-five year old workhorse.

And hey, peeps, has ANYONE out there read about how Senator Sanders intends to get insurance for all? Anyone?!

I'm asking because if people were reading about it there would be a shit storm of very specific screaming. I'm just gonna give you two. I refuse to be responsible for brain splatter; but do click the link, even if you just read the big words. It gets better. Or worse. Depending on how much money you do or do not make. 

The easy stuff:

4% increase in payroll tax - employee

7% increase in payroll tax - employer

Dooooo the math.

And you call me a Socialist. 

Truth? I'm good with that up there. Truth? I'm Socialist as shit but if you call me a Libtard one more time, I'm going to sucker punch you so hard you won't get up for a week. Because. 

This was as far as I got but you get the point. Apologies to Irving Berlin and Kate Smith (Kate, what did you DO?!)

God Bless the Governments 

God bless the Bailouts, banks that we love
Stand beside them and ride them
Through the ups and the downs of the DOW
Corporate looting, crash and burning

Mendacious maws white with foam
God bless the upper crust and their sweet homes
God bless the super PACs, with which we run
It’s collective… obligation
Through the night with the light down below

OK, I'm done now. This is better anyway:

What It Is - Mark Knopfler

"...There's frost on the graves and the monuments
But the taverns are warm in town
People curse the government
And shovel hot food down
The lights are out in city hall
The castle and the keep
The moon shines down upon it all
The legless and asleep
And it's cold on the tollgate
With the wagons creeping through..."

The drinking dens are spilling out
There's staggering in the square
There's lads and lasses falling about
And a crackling in the air
Down around the dungeon doors
The shelters and the queues
Everybody's looking for
Somebody's arms to fall into
And it's what it is
It's what it is now

There's frost on the graves and the monuments
But the taverns are warm in town
People curse the government
And shovel hot food down
The lights are out in city hall
The castle and the keep
The moon shines down upon it all
The legless and asleep

And it's cold on the tollgate
With the wagons creeping through
Cold on the tollgate
God knows what I could do with you
And it's what it is
It's what it is now

The garrison sleeps in the citadel
With the ghosts and the ancient stones
High up on the parapet
A Scottish piper stands alone
And high on the wind
The highland drums begin to roll
And something from the past just comes
And stares into my soul

And it's cold on the tollgate
With the Caledonian blues
Cold on the tollgate
God knows what I could do with you
And it's what it is
It's what it is now
What it is
It's what it is now

There's a chink of light, there's a burning wick
There's a lantern in the tower
Wee willie winkie with a candlestick
Still writing songs in the wee wee hours
On Charlotte Street
I take A walking stick from my hotel
The ghost of Dirty Dick
Is still in search of little nell
And it's what it is
It's what it is now
Oh, it's what it is
What it is now

Observing the Sausage Making: 20 hours was just too much

To be fair, I couldn't find any one particular image that jumped out at me screaming:

Pick me! Pick me! Sweartogod I'll make ONE of you barf into your lasagne.

Nope. Sorry. Not even remotely grossed out. Matter of fact, that smiling woman is a perfect snausage accessory. Or ingredient. Something. Have a look at the expression just over her right shoulder. He's thinkin' about it.

How could I possibly find the above aforementioned stew, which provides a copious protein count in addition to just a little bit less of the nutrients and spices in a large bag of Combos. We could do worse. 

We have always referred to the making and passing of bills et al something like watching the making of sausage. We like them, we want them, we'll tear each other apart to have them and yet, we cannot watch.

Well. Sometimes we can watch but most of us do not even turn our heads the least little bit in the direction of that particular factory. In researching Bernie's legislative track record I found pretty much as expected. He authored his share of bills but they died quietly of oxygen deprivation on the Senate floor or just outside the door. That's not saying he was or is without impact. He's slick. His interests have been tacked on as amendments to bills bound for that big old gateway to the public desk. 

I imagine the desk in the oval office to be void of anything other than an animated halloween costume hand, pen glued to fingers in the appropriate positions with Gorilla Glue. Bills inserted into pneumatic vacuum tubes arrive to the right or the left of the animated hand.

A tube drop to the right opens automatically, sliding the one page document neatly into place. The snick of the paper into the signature tray, void of anything other than a name, date, and signature line indicates a pass. The hand moves as instructed, the paper slides to the right, and the process is over save the daily pick up of one side or another, or some days, both.

A tube drop to the left dumps approximately 223 pages in the direction of the floor. Some of them hit the side of the box on the way down and we call it good. 

At the end of the day a page collects the signed bills, glances at the dark side of the desk to make sure it has swallowed completely, and calls maintenance if so much as a shred of evidence remains on or in the carpet.

I don't mean to pick on Bernie, but Bernie is a good example of our governmental sausage factory. I expect he's accomplished quite a bit on the backs of the papers that slide to the right. 

Most of us don't see these things until something changes, for better or worse and most of us have no idea what the hell happened and from whence did this thing fall from the sky? We just don't. 

Why does a bill, having nothing to do with a particular amendment, allow a particular amendment to ride on its back?

Jeeze, I almost feel bad using this particular phrase at the moment, but what is, is. No point lipsticking a pig now.

Quid Pro Quo: Something for Something; One thing for another. 

Stop thinking about all those headlines and back up a bit. Quid Pro Quo is Status Quo. Snausages! It's how shit gets done and it's also how shit happens, how shit does not happen, and how shit gets on everything. Sorry. Sausage guts. 

The question we never ask ourselves. Never, ever, ever because we couldn't bear it:

What did he have to do to get that amendment buried between paragraphs eight and nine of section 48? 

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Oh my god, I have always wanted a chance to use that in context. I may just have peed myself. Just a little. 

But really, our collective heads would explode and it's entirely possible that 80% of the US population would fall over never to rise again; the stench of truth obliterated by 264,802,121 rotting corpses. Pink sludge. That's what we'd be. I'd be a little concerned about the remaining 66,200,530 bodies but since I'd be pink sludge, it doesn't bear too much consideration. 

Hey, just because I'm not blind doesn't mean I can hold my liquor. 

I'm getting carried away. My intention is to point out a few brief moments in US History which might suggest the extent of our culpability as a Nation for things we would honest to the good lord ever look at.

I mean, really, how can we lose with God on our side? 

At Random and possibly in chronological order:

1. The Bay of Pigs - how, what, and why? Don't consult your history books; no point
2. The Kennedy Assassination - oh COME ON, people; try to think past the obvious
3. The Iran Contra Debacle  (I warned you, possibly in chronological order)
4. Vietnam
5. Soldiers returning from Vietnam
6. Kent State - that it could happen, that it did happen, but more importantly, the aftermath
7. We Like Ike and the Belgian Congo - what did we do and why did we do it? Who benefited, who got hurt and just how badly, and what did we get out of it?
8. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I've already screamed, wept, and gnashed my teeth over this one
9. The American Civil War - how, why, for how long, and for what?
10. The remnants still waving and standing South of the Mason Dixon Line. Why? Don't just take this for granted. Why was this permitted and supported for so long that a significant population of our land mass cannot possibly imagine why these things don't belong? Who got what out of this?
11. These be fighting words: The 6,605 day (today's count) War Without a Name. 

Here's a body count:

Stare. At. That. Page. LOOK AT IT, GOD DAMMIT, FUCKING LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS!!!

And if you can look at the numbers on that page, if you can think about them statistically and not weep, may all the gods, ancient and current hold your soul in the palm of their collective hands.   ...and heal your broken, blasted, shattered heart.  

Christ on a bike.

Sausage of the day:

I ought to know who said this first because I was out of my mind staring at the man. Mouth Open. Eyes about to roll back into my head.

'The American People should decide... by vote...'

I totally hosed that but it's been picked up and bandied about enough that you should, by now have heard it out of somebody's mouth. 

Back the truck up. The House and the Senate have two separate and distinct responsibility in the case of impeachment. Any member of congress has a responsibility one way or another. Any elected member has an Obligation.

Obligation: noun: an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment.

And you want to pass this to your constituents? For real? He did not mean the election. Sweartogod, in that context, that senator chose to shirk his duties and them back on the shoulders of them who sent him to the hill.

Shut up, man and just vote the way we all know you're going to vote. Just shut the fuck up, hold your nose, and think of England. 

Theoretically I'd be perfectly happy if this administration threw half the shit they've stomped on back to the public. I'm not OK with this for two reasons, one of which is really gross.

What is the population of the voting American public that can name and define the Articles of Impeachment? All. Of. Them. Take your hands off the keyboard right now and later go see where you stand. I'd ask a bunch of other relevant questions but I'm already squirming.

That was gross, right? This is worse.

He, and everyone else who made or quoted the statement about tossing this back to the American Public (I promise, this was before it turned into an election issue, this was, cast an American vote right now and see what they come back with.

Why is that gross? Is that gross? Are you OK with that? 

I'm not even going to touch anything else that went on in that room because I'm still shaking. Twenty hours nearly straight is really too much for any one person to bear. And yet, we have asked of Congress far more. 

Like a ping pong ball, the conversation volleyed back and forth between the managers and the Senators. The same couple of issues day after day only some said them different each time they spoke and some said things that made me cry. I gotta hand it to them though, one and all, they all spoke well. One in particular spoke so well I thought he might have been some lovely piece of code because that man did not freaking blink. It was soothing to listen to him right up to the end even when all was said and done except for the Wednesday formalities.

Oh, listen, you guys! OK, maybe it's just me seeing this for the first time. I was watching the Trump Children speak last evening and one of them said the most remarkable thing!

He said, essentially, even though you all are the flyover states, I still come here, I still have friends here.

And for the love of god, that crowd ate it up. Well, this is why we can't do the Senate's job, and this is also why our votes are kinda like pissing in the wind.

VOTE ANYWAY! VOTE OFTEN! VOTE YOUR MIND.

(ps do your homework, think it through, and THEN go vote)

This version is awesome. AND it's got lyrics which are pretty important right about now.

With God on our Side - Buddy Miller

Tell me, who do you want to be? You get one life, no less and no more. Who do you want to be?

Peace be with you...

...and also with you

Didn't expect That

This was taken Saturday night before I'd finished the landing. About those teeth at the doorway... I'm intimately familiar with said teeth. The Lizard brain has been informed. I'm fairly certain I won't be needing a tetanus shot any time soon although maybe just on general principle. 

The floor is tremendous and for the most part, the 250 carpet staples came out without a noticeable trace. Most of them. I have a gallon size ziplock freezer bag full of tacks, staples, and some really odd nails. I finished the landing on Sunday afternoon. Here's the thing, those tack strips? I'm really good at taking them out. Three sturdy standard screw drivers at least ten, preferably twelve inches with nearly flat top handles so it's easier not to smash my thumb into the wall if I miss. I don't generally miss but all it takes is once to crush that invisible forcefield and then all bets are off. Put a hammer through that invisible barrier and you're going to smash your thumb every other swing for the rest of the day.

It's like allowing yourself to be stepped on, HARD, at a crowded dance; that partially crushed toe or foot or heel is holding up a neon sign that reads:

Kick Me!

Right. So tearing up carpet strips with a gazillion teeth that point in both directions (nifty) and a couple of serious nails every six to eight inches isn't much of an issue. It's those other teeth that were an issue. I've seen lots of staples (but 250 in just that space?! w t f, people), lots of tacks, a few random nails here and there but I have never seen the things that look like miniature hairpins. Deadly miniature hairpins. 

This carpet was installed by people who knew they weren't ever going to have to pull it up. Best I can say is, at least we don't use glue anymore. We don't, do we? Haven't seen any yet but I hear stories.

So these hairpins, if there's a chance in hell I can get the smallest, sharpest needle nose pliers I own into a gap then the chances are almost in my favor. If I can get a tip through the gap I've got a 42% chance. That's what I mean by almost in my favor. If I can get in there and wiggle around enough, I can get the bigger pliers in there and then, as if I were defusing a bomb, I pry and cajole, and try to get myself in sideways. 

Nose through two millimeters? Go! Sideways, go sideways. Don't ever, for the love of god, turn your pliers and try to pull up and out. Use the best leverage you can get and push UP. Got maybe three quarters of them out that way. Broke a few and had to hammer them into the floor (I wept) and finally learned to get the chisel into the action.

Who puts this shit into 250 year old hardwood? ASSHOLE!

About Really Old Houses:

Really Old Houses don't have a single true line anywhere. Nope. Sorry. No. Fucking. Where. 

Sometimes I take the time to decide whether I'm going to level to the ceiling or the floor; other times I throw caution to the wind and let the house decide how that painting's going to hang. There is literally no true line and I promise I have looked (which was just stupid after I noticed Elizabeth's doorframe:

When I took this into Affinity (the, I'm not paying for a photoshop subscription, photo editing software) I really could not figure out if it was better to straighten the horizon, somewhere, or take my luck with a vertical. See the floorboards? I tried to straighten on those lines; holy crap! I don't ever want to look at it that way. Again. Ever. Elizabeth's doorframe really is that cattywampus so what I'm going to show you next shouldn't be even remotely surprising. You can already sort of see it there on the left. It will be easier when you know what you're looking at. This is a composite so you don't have to do the scrolling up and down so much:

Yup. That is really happening. Has really happened. Will, no doubt continue to happen. It took this plus this plus what's up in the attic to really understand:

Now we're going up to the attic with it's nifty pull down stairs. 

On the left is a shot of the chimney from the right and on the right is from the front. These two together are things I don't much care to think about. Now look at this (go ahead and blow it up) and think really hard about what you're looking at. 

I made an attempt to straighten on the center beam. I should have used the window, right? Nope. Made it worse. You can only stand up in the middle, by the way. This roof has been replaced, the windows as well (not in this century and not anywhere near the end of the last) and it is fully floored for which I am damned grateful. There is carpeting laid out on the right and we are repurposing the carpeting from the landing, and later the bedrooms on the left. If I decide I'm really not going anywhere anytime soon I will put up insulation between the beams. It's too late to put it in the under the flooring. 

So here's a thing I found and it took me a little longer to put the pieces together. The attic stairs are to the right and on the other side of the chimney. If you come down the stairs the way you should (like a ladder), you are looking at Elizabeth's Dr. Seuss door. Turn left and look at my door and the top of the stairs (first shot in the post). Turn right, go down the stairs, make an immediate left and you're looking out the bay window into the back yard. Walk forward until you reach the window seat and look right. It looks like a repurposed dumb waiter but it is not. 

The three shelves are exactly as deep as the staircase directly below this wall. It took the industrial maglite to see what's really going on in there. Look to the left and there's what surely is a boarded up something. Look to the right and there are stairs. Stairs for a little while and then a boarded up something. I ran back and forth a couple of times until I worked out where the stairs come out, and they do come out even if the wall in Elizabeth's closet is boarded up. Pretty sure I'd find what I was looking for if I tore off those boards.

Probably not gonna go that far. 

I can see the bottom of the stairs, by the way, from the basement stairs looking up. They do, indeed end at the back of Elizabeth's closet. The rest of it I'm still trying to work out because, this:

Erm. NOT the same house. Not at all. I don't know enough about old flooring to date those stairs yet but I'm willing to bet there's at least 100 years between this staircase, the very top of the landing and my room to the right.

Of COURSE I did this. I had to know, I just HAD to know. And there are those old planks again. I'm still trying to work that out. I'm still trying to figure out how you could come in on the top floor from the outside and get back to the first floor. 

Elizabeth's floors are the same beautiful planks as the landing and the living area directly below. The bathroom floors also have wide planks but those planks are painted a VERY pale Pepto Bismol pink. I'm trying to decide if it's worth trying to take a bit of that paint up in a small patch of corner. Just to see. 

So two houses. That's what I think. It doesn't even feel like an addition because it is literally half and half with the center hall staircase (it's a bit small, but still, a center hall is a center hall) dividing the old from the older. The ceilings have clearly been raised; probably about eight inches (oy, that chimney). But when?

My room is nearly sixteen feet long. It's not very wide but it works. The entire room, all the way to the top of the landing is the top of what I think of as the new house. It is directly on top of the kitchen with the dumb waiter that is not really a dumb waiter. What's up with the center beam? There is another very much like it downstairs in the living space on the other side of the house. My closet is directly above the kitchen door to the itty bitty foyer. If I pulled out the wall, I'd fall right onto the manhole cover sized (bigger) grate which brought heat from what was probably a coal furnace once, very long ago. Standing in front of my closet, if I stepped left three feet I'd be standing directly above the original stairway which leads to Elizabeth's closet.

Confused as shit yet? Yeah, me too. This may just make it worse:

Floor Plans by a Five Year Old

Just to be clear, there ARE windows in this house. It just looked a little cluttered when I started to add them. Proportionately speaking? I'm probably close. Also, an 11 x 9 room doesn't look like that bad a deal but just add water and those damn things sprout! Sorry, I meant furniture. My extra five feet make all the difference in the world. 

The kitchen? Drop in a full size refrigerator and range sans hood (jeSUS fucking christ - when that fire alarm goes off, it goes OFF), add 70 inches of counter space, a good chunk of which is sink, against the back wall, a kitchen island-like thing slammed up against the not a dumb waiter wall, and a kitchen table which can expand from 8 inches all the way to 56, or something like that. Plus two chairs. Plus just stuff. The bay window to the right of the door is kind of cool. A little extra space onto which objects may be tossed. 

There is baseboard heating (hot water) along the NE and SW sides of the first floor. That. Is. It. So don't put anything in front of them - ok? Now measure. 

I have a 60 inch bookcase against the SW wall of the living space. If that thing has a back, it would not live in this house. So we did this:

See the way we did the top shelf? That doesn't nearly cover the number of books from 5 linear feet. There is a 48 inch matching bookshelf to the left against the corner without the heat. It has been resorted, cataloged and re-shelved the same way. Life is good.

I don't know when the heat was cut off from the second floor but it's not at the top of my list right now. It is why I tore up the carpeting. You know what happens when the temp downstairs is at 70 and the temp upstairs is at 55? 

Heat don't rise if cold is meaner. When my desk used to be in the NE corner I used to feel a draft, blowing like wind, actually. Really, wind. Look up wind speed and find out about temperature and pressure changes. Wind in my house, holy shit. The carpeting with half an inch of compressed shit underneath absolutely stopped the heat from rising up into the bedrooms. This creates a wind tunnel through which the cold air dropped and nipped at my well covered ankles. 

We combat this by placing and electric oil radiator in the foyer when it gets bad. It's like watching Godzilla and Mothra fight it out. 

Yes. The windows are sealed. Of course they are sealed. And the Cattywampus chimney bump out by the Dr Seuss door has been wrapped with a door snake and a hand towel until I can figure out the best way to seal it up. 

You're going to ask why I haven't spoken with my land people yet. I know you are, so I'll save you the trouble. 

R is 92. Just got that way, I think. P is maybe 85. R is deaf as shit. Talking to R on the phone is an exercise in cruelty; he just does not deserve it. Also, I'm pretty sure he really wants to take care of everything himself but that doesn't always end well. Their youngest son, K is living with them but I think K's attention span is currently compromised. He's got his hands full and can ingest about two sentences. Oddly enough, I have never met him.

P is my favorite. I love her SO much, but P's short term memory is pretty much shot. If I see her nearly every day like I did in the garden last summer, she does pretty well. She does not recall that the dog left nearly a year ago and is quite certain that her dog is barking at my dog through the connecting door between my basement and her kitchen (floor plan part two, let it go). I am fairly certain that lunatic is barking at rats or mice. I have two traps about to hit the floor.  

For the most part we take care of ourselves. It really isn't that much of an issue having been responsible for my own stuff for most of my adult life. Also, good life lesson for Elizabeth. Here: take this screwdriver. Now that this screwdriver. What is the screwdriver in your right hand called? Standard! Well done. And the one in your left? No, not George, Philip. 

Elizabeth. None of this shit is rocket science. I've been told that most men can do it every day. This I tell her the day I'm assembling the table that goes from 8 inches to 56 mostly by myself because she's doing the best she can to hold slabs of particle board in place. 

There were 84 half inch screws, 16 hinges, 8 big fat bolts for panel stoppers (I refuse to explain that), those odd bolts with the turning channel thing that goes in the pre-holed holes (I am aware that this is something I should be able to name because just about every piece of furniture I've assembled in the last year had the little fuckers) and a bunch of other nifty stuff. The instructions are in Polish with one exception. At the very top of the paper it reads:

Expert II

Then there are two pictures:

1. a philps head screwdriver. ay yuh.
2. something that looks like it might be a hammer. or maybe a mallet. Not really sure.

You know what's missing:

1. YOU NEED A DRILL!!! You need a drill to put 84 plus holes in particle board.
2. You also need that drill to screw and unscrew all those screws. Don't be using that screwdriver. You. Will. Regret it

The Polish really isn't an issue because all you've got is the equivalent of 'count your pieces parts' and 'Mis en place', except not for food.

The are four diagrams. Mostly I understood perfectly. After the fact. In one case, two days after the fact. With 16 hinges you're bound to put at least one or two of them in the wrong place. Maybe not. 

Spatial Relations. On a test with 10 questions, I would get 2 correct. By accident.

I should not be able to assemble furniture, tear out carpeting, seal up windows, hang drapes or properly account for the dimensions of things.

Sure ya can. Dive in face first and work at it until you have it resolved. 

If you so much as sniff a mansplainer, get your shotgun out and light him up with rock salt. He'll be screaming obscenities but he'll also be gone. 

Carpets and tables. There are no instructions because the stuff that comes with instructions costs money. 

2690 words on carpeting? Guess so.

 

Not Smart Rats. Not smart at all

This is a political cartoon. Apparently I have to explain. I'll get back to it.

The Smart Rat

- as told to me by some facilitator at a seminar back in 1994. I'm pretty sure this is one version of many but this is what I heard (mine) and don't bother arguing. I give it to you for context.  

The facilitator asks the people sitting in rows and columns of chairs, about six inches below the podium, which are smarter? People or Rats? Rats or People? 

We're arrogant for so many reasons and in a short amount of time, the people sitting in the rows and columns of chairs agree vehemently that People are smarter for sure. What sort of question is that anyway? There is some grumbling from the way back corner about trick questions, a thud, and then silence.

Consensus is all. 

Having obtained an answer, the facilitator tells the story:

1. There are 4 Tubes in a box. 
2. At the end of one of the Tubes, there is a big, fat, honking piece of cheese.
3. In every other Tube there is nothing. 
4. Bupkis. 
5. There is ONE very Hongry Rat. 
6. One, just 1. Very Hangry Rat.
   
   
7. A Motivated Rat. 

It is very funny to watch the facilitator run up and down the imaginary tubes carrying his mic and mic cord and narrating the entire time. This facilitator tells a good story.

Here's how it goes (but not with the bullet numbers called out):

1. The rat runs down Tube #1.
2. At the end he stops, he stiffs, he wiggles his whiskers
3. Not a crumble
4. Wasting no time, the rat turns abruptly and runs back the way he came.
5. Tube #1 is already forgotten (except the memory that it is cheese-less)
   
   He does not trip over the mic cord. To this day I remain impressed.
   
   
6. The rat runs down tube #2. CHHHEEEEEEESSSSEEEE! 

Monsieur Ratty has successfully completed his mission and settles down to eat for a week. 

Note: Monsieur Ratty does not pick up the cheese and run to the top of the Tube. 

Monsieur Ratty just eats the damn cheese. End of Monsieur Ratty's story. Mostly.

Monsieur Ratty left a note on Tube #1. Probably not a Ratarian act; most likely just to remind himself on the way back out, but not particularly worried that some other rat will read the note, rush on to Tube #2, knock him off his chair, and proceed to the cheese. His Cheese. Monsieur Ratty's Cheese. 

Hard to say.

The facilitator asks for a female volunteer. Today the facilitator would just ask for a volunteer. Hopefully. But in 1994 we still made some pretty harsh assumptions. Knee-jerk, but harsh. 

A beautiful brown skinned woman from the third or fourth row, center column stands up. The facilitator beckons her forward, leads her to Tube #3, guides her to the end of Tube #3 and pronounces her 'Cheese'.

Um. Yeah, I'll leave that alone. For now. It was 1994.

The facilitator has become the Man (it's a metaphor, let it go) and continues the story (but not with the bulleted numbers called out):

1. There are 4 Tubes in a box. 
2. At the end of one of the Tubes stands The Perfect Woman.
3. In every other Tube there is nothing. 
4. Bupkis. 
5. There is ONE Very Lonely, Lonely Man. 
6. The ONE Very Lonely Man is a bunch of other biological things, but we don't get a list. We already know, being People.
   
   
7. A Motivated Man. 

It is very funny to watch the facilitator run up and down the imaginary tubes carrying his mic and mic cord and narrating the entire time. This facilitator tells a hilarious story. A story we can all relate to. We are all (mostly, maybe not the still silenced voice from the back corner) laughing about personal experience, things we have seen other people do, not us. We would not.

Here's how it goes (but not with the bullet numbers called out):

1. The Man runs to the end of Tube #1
2. He stops, puffs up his chest, sniffs, flexes his forearms and calls out (back up the tube):
3. Is anyone in this well lit echoing chamber? Anyone? 
4. Not a crumble
5. He sits down at the end of Tube #1 and weeps
6. Eventually he leaves Tube #1, but not without a last look, just in case 
7. He leaves a sixteen page love letter fixed firmly at the entry. The letter is to the missing woman, his broken heart, and a warning to all other men
8. In the man's memory, Tube #1 had a woman and then he did not. He continues his search
   
   He does not trip over the mic cord. To this day I remain impressed.
   
   
9. The Man strolls to the end of Tube #2. He whistles
10. The Man sits down and has a beer. He waits. He bides his time
11. Eventually he sobers himself up and leaves Tube #2  
12. The Man does not leave a note, not even to himself
    
    
13. FINALLY! The Man and the Woman are united at the end of Tube #3
14. They are The Perfect Man and The Perfect Woman and they are very happy
15. They sit down and...
16. The Man gets up and announces his departure...
    
    I'm going out for a pack of smokes and some milk? Want anything else?
    
    
17. We watch the Man run over to Tube #4, just in case there's something better over there. Nope
18. He ambles back to Tube #2 in case he missed something, or she was maybe in the ladies room at the time. Nope
19. He RUNS back to Tube #1 because maybe she came back! His letter is still pinned at the opening. He runs to the end of Tube #1 anyway
20. Now the Man is lost. He remembers another Tube, a Tube with The Perfect Woman. He starts running in circles at the end of Tube #1, chasing his tail and weeping.
    
    From the way back corner of the room, someone is laughing. Hard. Because this is REALLY funny unless you take yourself way too seriously.
    Thud.
    What the fuck?!
    Thud. THUD. Thud.
    Silence.  
    
    
21. The Perfect Woman stands up and calls out to The Man. Over here! I'm over here!
22. The Man looks up, scratches behind his ear, and lets out a deep sigh
23. The Perfect Woman leaves Tube #3 and walks down to Tube #1. She calls out
24. Nothing. He's composing another letter to leave with the first.
25. The Perfect Woman leaves the box and returns to her seat. Fuck 'im, then

The facilitator stands up and returns to the podium. He is silent. We are silent. The voice from the way back corner yells:

Voice:            We are NOT the Smart Rats, are we?

Facilitator:      We are not the Smart Rats. Not smart at all.

Which leads into a lengthy discussion about this metaphor and us, personally.

I'm thinking about the food chain lately. Monsieur is whomever ends up at the top of the food chain. The other one? Le Mouchard. The rest of us, I suppose. 

At least that's the way we believe it to be.

This was sorta fun but I decided not to label the players. We wouldn't get a consensus anyway.

Voice from the way back corner:        Cough.   

Here is one of my favorite Monsieur Simon songs. I think of it as his 'later work' but since this CD was in my hands a few months before Elizabeth was born, that would make it twenty years old. That's his later work - yah?

Pigs, Sheep and Wolves - Paul Simon - released in October, 2000 on You're The One

Let's get him! Let's get that wolf! Let's get him let's get him lets get him! KILL that wolf!

Pigs, Sheep, and Wolves...

The Demise of the Mixtape: and why it matters

There is a damn long playlist below. Isn't it better if I just give you this? Don't worry. It's kinda short. 00:01:01, I believe.

I paid $3.99 for a month of unlimited use. You get what you don't pay for most of the time, but it did the trick. Therefore, be gentle, please, with my editing results. Ack.

This whole thing started because I reset my alarm before bed last night.

I did this because I was tired of being yelled at by Jessy Wilson and Kallie North. I appreciate a STRONG Female Anthem as much as the next woman but the Muddy Magnolia's American Woman (not to be confused with any other such titled songs) (in any way whatsoever),  scared the shit out of me every damn morning. Near heart failure before noon isn't recommended. 

I love that I can scroll through the music on my phone and pick up anything I've got out there. I love that you get the entire song if you want it (just don't touch the screen or it's all over). I am not amused at my nearly complete lack of self-preservation.

Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key - Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue, 1998 - "...ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me..."

Still pretty damn passionate for first thing in the morning, at full volume, and approximately eight inches from my right ear. BUT, it is in the minor key (who knew?!) which makes it mostly singable by me, even first thing in the morning (because nobody is listening). 

You can take a massive shot of adrenaline an awful long way. 

"way over yonder in the minor key, way over yonder in the minor key... ain't nobody that can sing like me..."

It's still in my head but I've shut up now. Mostly. Note: If you click that link you can listen to Mermaid Avenue in its entirety, uninterrupted. I recommend California Stars with a full bodied red, on a deck overlooking the dunes just about anywhere without enough ambient light to kill off the stars. I heard a man, once, who knew the three major chords required to sing just about anything, belt California Stars out well enough I wanted to throw money at him. He was three decks over and protected by the posse most likely called Family. He had at LEAST four of them harmonizing halfway through. 

And that was it. I wept. I wanted to beg for more. The unspoken law of residential beach privacy being what it is, this would only have been permitted in the early morning and only if I showed up with coffee. It was after midnight. I wept.

So what's it all about, Alfie?

It's about Elizabeth's playlist, the one we made for her 18th birthday. The one she listens to on Spotify, completely out of order because this is the way of the world now; we no longer understand the purpose of the thing called mixtape. There was brief period of time when you could not give music in playlist format. The technology wasn't there yet. We abandoned our CD players and burners, turned to iTunes and Amazon and just before the jump to Spotify, we figured it out. It's not perfect, but it's viable. 

Instructions: 

1. Make a playlist (I'm not going to tell you how to come up with a mixtape sort of playlist; you either have it or you do not)
2. Put the songs and or recordings in the order in which they should be heard.
3. If you can make it work, the MAC does have a process for adding brief gaps and something resembling a very brief fade in fade out but nothing like what we lost when we let analog slip away, ghost like. 
4. Make sure you actually OWN the rights to play and move about these songs. You no longer have the right to handle the music the way you once did. Not even if you purchase an actual CD. 
5. Make sure every single recording is actually present on your drive.
6. Copy all of the playlist recordings into a new folder which can be called whatever the hell you want because nothing's going to read it anyway.
7. Make a FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THINGS HOLY: READ. ME. FIRST. file in as generic a format as possible (I actually use microsoft these days)
8. Put the titles, in order, of the playlist at the top of the read me and then in big letters
   1. INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSFERRING A PLAYLIST - do not try this at home
   2. INSTRUCTIONS:
      1. Insert this itty bitty thumb drive into your USB or USB C (I like the thumb drives with both options) port. 
      2. Wait for your computer to acknowledge and read the contents of the drive.
      3. Copy the contents of this entire folder (including the folder which is the folder you created to capture the music and stuff) into your music directory. 
      4. Open iTunes. 
      5. Add a Playlist, call it THIS
      6. Add each song to the play list (if you must, add instructions required to help iTunes see this stuff)
      7. Rearrange the order and make sure you don't have any random settings applied to actual folders 
      8. Put the drive in a safe place (after properly removing it)
      9. Put your cursor on the first song and play
      10. Don't fuck with this. It's in that order for a reason
      11. If there is another file on the drive with more information, like the artist, song length, and / or person associated with such song, make sure it's accessible

Sometimes there isn't a damn thing you can do to drag the Spotify junkie back to something that might not be random for a perfectly good reason.

Sometimes there are recordings on those lists that will never be found in the random ether or 'free music'.

Sometimes there are recordings on those lists that will never be found anywhere other than the thumb drive and the drive on which the recording was made. 

Someday soon, I expect, she's going to ask me if, by any chance, I know where her thumb drive is and I'm going to hand her a spare and say, it's right here, love. 

I sent her the link to the video I made this morning because I wanted her to know that her face was all over the interwebs (nobody is going to find this thing, but still) but not her name or even mine and was she ok with that? 

"This is so thoughtful, thank you❤️ I actually repeat this poem in my head often when I’m stressed or worried, and it’s better to hear it from you."

Indeed, she is. Sometimes it's better just to send a link. Maybe. 

Probably published this end of 2018 which is when she turned 18 but for my own self, here it is again. In an Excel screen shot. I'm so sorry.

Someday when I'm motivated enough to chop up the tracks, I'll take these down to sound bites, small enough to merge them into something manageable and then I'll make her another. Kinda curious about whether or not youtube will notice the copyright infringements if I pull it together real tight.

If we have been reduced to the consumption of soundbites in the third decade of the twenty-first century, a conglomeration (unholy or otherwise if you look closely at that list - heh) might have relevant impact.