building little bully billy bigots one panel at a time

Look at little Billy's face in panel two. Is it even possible that there's a child out there who gets this torqued-out about wearing clothes made in other countries? (Any child not poisoned by xenophobic parents, that is.) Or even grasps that clothes are not made by the clothing elves living in the department store basement?

Aside from the fact that this comic strip is inane and the very definition of saccharine, what kind of message does this send?

Free market exchange for us but not all you brown fuckers (Now, Billy, you're still not allowed to say the brown word), I mean, brown kids. Or: We can dress up like you on world cultures day at elementary school, learn your folk dances and the bleached version of your history but we're not buying your shit...unless, of course, it's made in our goddamn sweatshops.

With a sweet little nod to knittin' grandma.

Family Circus sucks.

now that was a nap

That was a nap that makes the other naps whistle a low, "da-a-a-mn."

That was a nap of stygian oblivion. A state of perfect matte blackness from which you awaken unsure whether tomorrow has eclipsed today.

That was a nap that bulleted past with all but its wingtips tucked and obliterated your little sparrow of consciousness in such a blinding explosion of feathers and talons that you didn't have time to whimper.

That, my friends, was a nap.

Damn.


[update: I submitted this entry to Six Sentences and they accepted and posted it here.]

artemia salina is way too fancy a name

Just read a great post about school fair goldfish at The QC Report.

It reminded me of another watery pet story filed under: Unwanted Pets That Wouldn't Die. My son had sea monkeys. I can't remember who bought them for him, probably someone with a score to settle with me. And obviously, whoever marketed brine shrimp as pets was a certifiable mad genius.

I, however, found it difficult to distinguish sea monkeys from flotsam in murky water and was not impressed. And they lasted forever...even when my son stopped feeding them and I, um, forgot to remind him. For a month. Jesus, they cannibalized their young or ate their dead or something.

But I didn't kill them all on purpose, no matter what my family thinks. I was cleaning off the countertop while my children were at their dad's house and the cloudy little shrimp tower fell over. Generations of sea monkeys rode a scum tidal wave over the kitchen floor, racing beneath appliances to die and decompose.

While I mopped up the carcasses of innumerable smelly shrimp, Barbara scoured a half-dozen toy stores and found another batch of dried monkey powder that we reconstituted and encouraged to speed grow (they didn't) so our son wouldn't know that all of his adult sea pals had been replaced (he didn't).

For years after this mishap I felt the weight of massacred sea monkeys on my soul. Every time I swerved to avoid a squirrel in the road, I imagined a few dead sea monkey black marks erased from the tally. Years later, when I felt that my pet-related crimes had been atoned for in full, I was finally free to annihilate all those animals too unevolved to factor automobiles into their genetic code.

Oh, calm down. I hate washing dead critter bits off my car.

not often

Not ofet6n often do I blog drunk.

Because I can't speel spell...or rather, I can't type fir for shit.

But goddammit, am I relaxed.

Hey–did I mention that for my 50th birthday (FIFTIETH, you heard me) I had a choice? Yes, I did. (First, I puled about not spending money and Barbara said, Let me remind you about how this works: you suggest, I decide. I love it when she goes all unexpectedly butch on me.) I really wanted a new computer. One of those MacBook Pro things. You can navigate the Space Station with those fuckers. And oh my god, do we need countertops. I also had my heart set on a stand-alone mixer. Like those gorgeous Kitchen Aid professional mixers. They come in red and will whip chunks of mesquite into a fine paste. BUT, our friends in Germany said, Come visit...stay with us, we're 1 hour from the border of France.

It's a no brainer, people (At this point in time, I am more than qualified to discuss decisions made while using very little of one's brain), new countertops and computers be damned, I'm going to celebrate my 50th in France. Paris, if possible.

I'm goign going to bed now.

Good fight, and good fuck.

congratulations (again) to phyllis & del

Cheers for California queers! Particularly this lovely old couple, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons, who tied the knot in California yesterday:

Phyllis & Del, then. | Del & Phyllis, now.

Together for over 50 years these two San Francisco activists were pivotal in the fight for lesbian visibility and GLBT rights. The word hero has been handed out like elementary school honorable mentions and I wish I had a better word. But in every cliché-free sense, these brave women are heroes.

story via dailykos

five years

I overheard my coworkers begin their morning chatter and reached for my headphones just as one of them exclaimed, I haven't read a book in ages. The other responded, It's been five years since I read a book!

A moment of brain-recoiling horror. I can't imagine not reading books. All the time. Sometimes several at a time. And real books, fucking snob that I am. Books that have vocabulary and plot. Books that challenge my viewpoint and pull me into another world.

But, I thought (trying to regain my equilibrium) there are things that I haven't done in five years that might horrify someone else. Let me think. Five years since my last manicure? Okay. Maybe something more substantial...five years since I went to a concert?...since I've worn heels and pantyhose? Okay, that isn't really substantial. Five years since I danced? That actually is a tragedy...except I can't dance. Five years since I've bought a car...since I've gone hiking or camping (I'm stifling my applause). Five years since I've ridden a bicycle. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Five years since I've flown a kite or gone skiing or used differential calculus.

Now I'm exhausted. But none of these things seems as critical, or mutually exclusive to giving your brain regular stimulation. Of course, we always see as most important the things we like and are good at...

Aw, bullshit: people, your brains are going to mush and you need to feed them something decent. Not the Weekly World News. Not romance novels. Or not just the Weekly World News and romance novels.

post postmortem post

I'd been peeling back the layers of accumulati adorning my desk when I rediscovered my "notes" from the recent funeral I attended. Approaching any ceremony or meeting without a writing implement and paper sends me into a wild-eyed panic. Swaths of exposed skin have been penned upon in emergencies. Praise Zeus funerals provide programs...

One of the peculiarities of religion is the need to speculate about god's motives. You know, god took the baby because she was too good for this world. Gramps died because The Lord decided to ended his suffering. (Presumably The Lord thought 10 years of exponential dementia and 3 years of grueling chemotherapy were just about right.) ANYWAY, at my aunt's funeral there were several references to the Virgin Mother taking her on Mother's Day. As if that was the best way to honor her. At her party. On the other side. I'm so perplexed by all this. I find myself daydreaming that the priest dies and arrives at deathland only to realize, "Shit. I was totally talking outta my ass."

Most religions are power-sucks–even if it is the comfort being sought–because they hammer home the concept that you can't do things without god's help. You can't overcome your weakness, you can't accomplish your goals, you can't face death, you can't get to heaven, etc. ad nauseum without following some prescribed behavior. Without faith. Without obedience. Without baptism and tithing. Which seems counterintuitive, if you buy this divine spiritual goal of attaining perfection. Shouldn't we be taught that we have incredible innate powers? Not reaching inward to tap into these fallow abilities should be a sin. On that note, epiphenita's latest set of commandments:

1. Thou shalt use thy common sense.
2. Thou shalt stop whining or I shall cast out all thy big white teeth.
3. Thou shalt stop pestering me (god) about high school sports.
4. Thou shalt figure it out. Make thine list and use thy holy gray matter.
5. Thou shalt think about tomorrow before using all thy silver pieces for new togas and sandals today.
6. Thou shalt use thy signal or suffer the wrath of my vengeful high priestess of traffic flow.

10-schmen. Get these six right and then maybe, you get the next four. Back to the service...

The sweet little incense-swinging priest was likable enough. He told the congregation that it was okay to mourn. He referenced Jesus' sorrow at the death of his good friend Lazarus as proof that grief was an approved response to death. I don't remember the details of this part of the bible story–but the priest should know, right? So I guess JC was pretty sad.

But not so sad that he resisted RAISING LAZARUS FROM THE DEAD. He responded to death by using his superpowers. Come on! That's cheating and absolutely no comfort to us resurrection-challenged mortals.

Okay. Those are all my notes. That I can share. Suffice it to say that as a religious service/tribute to my aunt, it didn't suck. These people knew her and her family. That's good. But as a religious service addressing the mysteries of death...pretty much what I expected. Lots of assurance about things of which nobody is sure. Nice stained glass, though.

i agree but i'll do it anyway

This public diary thing is, you know, pretty fucking self-centered. I was reminded of this last week when the Writer's Almanac profiled one of my favorite authors, Michael Chabon. I skipped over to his bio in Wikipedia and read this:

In a 2002 essay, Chabon decried the state of modern short fiction (including his own), saying that, with rare exceptions, it consisted solely of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story." In an apparent reaction against these "plotless [stories] sparkling with epiphanic dew," Chabon's post-2000 work has been marked by an increased interest in genre fiction and plot.

Now I'm not a fiction writer. I'm an essayist of blog-common proportions. But I appreciate a periodic reminder that this private/public exercise is often no more than shameless masturbatory musings.

Another bit about Chabon from Wikipedia:

Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, was written as his UC-Irvine master's thesis. Without telling Chabon, his professor...sent it to a literary agent, who got the author an impressive $155,000 advance on the novel (most first-time novelists receive advances ranging from $5,000 to $7,500.) The Mysteries of Pittsburgh appeared in 1988 and became a bestseller, instantly catapulting Chabon to the status of literary celebrity.

Chabon was ambivalent about his newfound fame. He turned down offers to appear in a Gap ad and to be featured as one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People." (He later said, of the People offer, "I don't give a shit [about it]....I only take pride in things I've actually done myself. To be praised for something like that is just weird. It just felt like somebody calling and saying, 'We want to put you in a magazine because the weather's so nice where you live.'")

It just makes me happy to know that someone, whose work I respect, doesn't confuse credibility with popularity.

Now back to "sparkling with epiph[enit]anic dew."

two weeks

It's been two weeks since my last confession entry and I've got a bit of a backup. I can't [because I care] disgorge all the minutiae of the past couple of weeks but I can't seem to move forward until I unload some of it.

While I was watching my friends' ravenous pet corn snake devour a dead mouse this past weekend–'twas three times the width of its head, I swear–a word kept running through my head. As if on cue my smart, nature-loving friend M spoke the word:

per·i·stal·sis (pr-stôlss, -stl-)
n. pl. per·i·stal·ses (-sz)
The wavelike muscular contractions of the alimentary canal or other tubular structures by which contents are forced onward toward the opening.

What a fabulous adaptation, that unhinging jaw and muscle-rippling that moves such a proportionately gigantic lump from mouth into body, until there's nothing but a tongue-like tail left hanging from its reptilian lips.

So writer's peristalsis is kicking in. I'll catch up soon, albeit in more manageable, bite-sized pieces...

long island

I think homeland security is in cahoots with the manufacturers of travel size containers.

My aunt died. On Mother's Day of all days. Nature is not a kitten, my friends. My parents and three of the four sisters will meet on Long Island tomorrow. The missing sister represented at my cousin's funeral a few weeks ago, so we are representing for her this week.

Things have not gotten off to an auspicious start. However, the liquor up north tastes exactly like the booze we swill down here in Texas, so I'm sure it will all work out.

Hope our presence, in some way, honors our dear aunt. Hope our family time is incident-free. Anecdote-rich but incident-free...

ah, to be isabella rossellini's snail sub!

Isabella Rossellini defines gorgeous and sensual. I have sometimes joked that I would watch a movie of her folding linens (as if she folds her own linens). I wish I would have said: I would watch a movie of her dressed as a drone mounting a cardboard bee. That would have been prophetic.

Watch these shorts Isabella Rossellini created, called Green Porno. She is phenomenal.

(Thanks to L&M for sending me this link. It made my day.)

measure this, motherfuckers

When people (the real ones and the others knocking about the cluttered anteroom of my brain) talk about success and income and metrics, I often have to pause. I am clearly a part of middle America: becubed and belawned. But what measure do I use for these status-stained ideals? Most of what is batted around as a gauge for success is deeply unsatisfying.

Often these references are about my children. And what they are doing. In terms of the capitalist fast-track, they are not doing. In terms of everything that matters, they are so fucking engaged in life it's breathtaking. I admit to worrying about health insurance and financial stability while I marvel at their consciousness. An excerpt from my son's recent post:

it's been a good week, though long. my feet howl at their abuse and my heart scratches at my ribcage. the summer is almost here, bringing more changes than the season. it's after three in the morning and i just got home from work. the show tonight was simply awesome; the music, the people and the night itself. i scored 106 points on a scrabble word and it made me giddy. all i had to eat today was two cups of tomato basil soup and two stout helpings of whisky. i am erratic and unhinged and i don't feel the need to be otherwise. when this life is done i will consider myself lucky beyond measure.

If that's not rich with satisfaction, jesus, I don't know what is.

jurist imprudence

I had jury duty this afternoon.  

It's scary in there

 Democracy is basically a good idea and so is civic duty. But the idea of being judged by a jury of my peers is bowels-turning-to-ice-water scary. Almost as frightening as having your fate decided by an appointed judge (read: crony) or elected judge (read: politician). But not quite. Hardly anyone likes jury duty and I'm no exception (and I forgot my damn earplugs) but like a pap smear or colonoscopy, you don't have to like it, just get it done (as professionally as possible).  

 A few years ago I was chosen to be on a jury trying two of the five people accused of torturing and murdering a mentally retarded man. The ringleader, Suzanne Basso, was eventually given the death penalty by another jury. [Note: I am against the death penalty and if I had been in that jury, I would not have agreed.] However, it was Bernice Ahrens Miller (Suzanne's close friend) and Miller's son, Craig Ahrens who were the defendants being tried by our jury.  

Count to three; it's okay to use your fingers 

Before I go on, let me return to today's jury duty. It was municipal court, pretty much guaranteed to be a simpler, briefer experience than the previous one. Of the larger group that showed up for jury duty all but two made the first cut into little potential juror pools (I was cut after the second round of tryouts, ptl). The pool to which I was called numbered 14. Six were to be empaneled. The judge (a zaftig amazon with good hair) was mercifully intelligent and non-pontificating unlike her irritating bailiff. She asked each of us to answer three questions. Each one requiring a one word or simple sentence answer. Three questions:

1. Occupation
2. Where you live (what area or neighborhood)
3. Have you ever served on a jury

Three questions...and she even gave an example:

Astronaut,

Clear Lake,

No, i have not served.

Out of the 14 people, five couldn't complete this request without prompting. And that's immediately after being asked and hearing others answer correctly. FIVE out of 14, godsaveusall.  

Back to the murder trial  

First of all, let's get this out of the way: the trial was about the torture and murder of a mentally retarded man. There were gruesome glossy photos and lengthy lawyerly theatrics. There were few mitigating circumstances to this sideshow of human abasement. It was ugly and sensational. This was almost 10 years ago, in 1999; there were 12 of us. A decent cross-section of our population, slightly skewed towards white lower middle-class, as I recall. The makeup of the jury didn't stay with me as anything more than a fairly typical "peer" sampling.  

What I learned about the jury process  

Many come into the jury room clutching their damaged inner child or hopped up on god or chomping at the bit with an axe to grind. This was about abuse, so some who had been abused felt compelled to share. This was about depravity and so some jurors felt compelled to use this experience as a way to right society's wrongs. All we could/should do was to make a decision based on the facts presented. Nothing more, nothing less. It was hard enough without all that other shit. The defense and prosecution depended on the antics of lawyers. God, there are so many douchebags practicing law. However, we could only glean the facts from the lawyers' arguments and the witnesses' testimony. The attorneys' logic and debate skills were to persuade us one way or another. They dueled and we held up the score cards. My fellow jurors veered off point so many times. They distorted logic and threw in some politics and religion. They were indignorant. A small number (2 or 3) of us attempted to drag folks back to the subject at hand. There was open hostility and crying. Let me repeat, there was crying. On that note, my fundamental jury duty axiom:

THERE IS NO CRYING IN THE JURY ROOM. 

 

None. If your ex-husband beat you and this trial reminds you of that nightmare, talk to your fucking therapist. If the photos are so upsetting you need to have a little meltdown, do it at home. Because we were deciding the fate of two OTHER human beings. It wasn't about anyone else except them and the victim. As much as I understand that this was upsetting to everyone (yes, even me) I wanted to scream at these jurors: it's not your turn, fucktards! It's not your life and liberty hanging in the balance. FOCUS!  

 

The jury is back

 

We eventually found the defendants guilty. The crime was pretty overwhelming and their culpability undeniable. The punishment phase was harder. The son (25 years old at the time) barely registered a room temperature IQ. I didn't expect the defense to put him on the stand. It seemed like such a bad idea. But, as it turned out, his simpleness actually helped him in the punishment phase. They both went to jail but his sentence was significantly lower than the hang 'em all contingent wanted to give. Ultimately, a child-like, retarded man died a cruel, painful death and four simpletons went to prison because one woman was a master manipulator and, I must moralize, a right evil bitch. Suzanne Basso's own daughter rejoiced at her sentence and volunteered to, metaphorically, "pull the switch." I hope I never, never have to be judged by my peers. But if that ever happens, I hope some of you more rational assholes out there don't dodge the summons.

jimmy cracks me up

gimcrack \JIM-krak\, noun:
1. A showy but useless or worthless object; a gewgaw.
2. Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.

[From Tuesday's dictionary.com word of the day.]

Let's use it in a sentence, shall we?:
As a joke, his fellow plumbers dropped some Mardi Gras beads down Jim's pants: adorning Jim's crack with gimcrack.

(That was a lot of work to make one tasteless pun.)

none-of-your-business names

In the long list of suspect business names out there, my personal favorite here in Houston is restaurant named Crapittos. It doesn't matter that it's family name, really. It's just not a good choice, especially for an eatery: Crap Eat Toes.

Today I found a flyer in my mailbox for a local handyman. The company name was Arreola's Construction.

(o)

Yes, I made them a nipple/breast emoticon. The extra r in the word just makes me think about a Spanish nipple...which is an odd thing because nipples so rarely speak.

Anyway, I like weird company names but I prefer when they are consciously tongue-in-cheek. With tag lines and the like:

• Arreola's: Specializing in Massage Parlor Construction.
• Let Arreola's build your Lingerie Shop
• Arreola's Construction; Your first stop for Nursing Mother Boutiques
  

sugar toes

I sometimes walk the downtown tunnels to the Park Shops (a mall-like building in the middle of urbania). Generally, I trek there for the Hallmark shop because while the tunnels are rife with little trinket shops, the cards in them categorically suck ass. While Hallmark makes me want to vomit from sweetness, they have some tolerable greeting cards. Anyway, on the third floor of the Park Shops there is a vitamin store. Or some kind of snake-oil peddler of health stuff. Every time I pass this store I want to go in there and steal their sign. I must not be the only one because now it's taped to the inside of the display window:

On Sale: Diabetic Socks

My delight is two-fold because first, I had no idea you could test for blood sugar on knitted garments. Or that somewhere on those sick socks, perhaps near the ribbing, is a place to inject insulin.

Second, after I chide myself with, No stupid-head, those socks are not diabetic, they are FOR diabetics, I'll claim to have known that all along and traipse in to buy a pair–just in case I become a diabetic at some future date. I wouldn't want to be caught with the stable blood sugar socks at such a critical moment.

Besides they will go so nicely with my arthritic underpants and hypertensive bra.

homage to travel

Cheap GPS

That xkcd guy is a ninja: he read my mind. I made this very same joke while we were getting lost adventuring in Florida last week. Okay, maybe we're both fucking ninjas.

post vacation post

We have returned from visiting the parental units and adding the first two notches on our 30 stadium tour belt. A bit travel-weary but happy to be home. Trying to kick-start normal routines back to life but so far, not much luck.

Forced myself to go into the kitchen and whip up some dinner. My mother cooked for us every day and well, she managed to raise me without spoiling me so how could she undo all that hard work in one week? Anyhow, I thawed some flounder fillets and scrounged up a couple of lemons for marinade. Did you ever cut a lemon in half, dig out 8 seeds and begin squeezing the juice out only to have another eight seeds try to skydive onto your meal? You catch those and begin to squeeze with abandon, because surely there aren't any more in there, and watch another half dozen fly out. You fish those out only to have a few more slide by. This was the lemon I faced on my reluctant return to the kitchen. The Darwinian Champion of lemons. The Ron Jeremy of Citrus.*

*I realize lemon seeds are more symbolic of ova fecundity than phallic virility. However, the analogy doesn't work very well. We don't tend to look at a female and think, damn, that's a lot of corpus luteum for one woman!

Btw, Happy 420, all you people with the dopey smiles.

The following entries are odds and ends I wrote up offline while on vacation but didn't have the internet zen space to post. They're in no particular order...

my father

I have had several people lately question me about revealing so much publicly on this blog. About work, about family and about, well, everything. The thing is, I don't feel exposed. Perhaps I should be more discreet, but polite chatter is no longer in me. I spent all my caution chits in my youth. Obsessed about what everyone thought. Preoccupied with "avoiding [even] the appearance of evil." The call to speak truth as I see it is stronger than all that for me. Check back with me if I get fired. I'm betting I'll feel the same.

Of course, that frankness does not extend to the people in my life without permission. I don't include names or details that would leave those I care about vulnerable.

I do have a deal with my kids, though. If the story is really good and we don't explicitly forbid its telling, all holds are barred.

This is not about my kids, however. It is about my father. And told with his permission. He is a complex, dynamic, difficult and earnest man. A man who epitomizes the American way. There is so much history to his life that it has hindered my writing about him up until now. Suffice it to say, he is a man who came to this country as a child, did not speak the language, lived in a ghetto, went into the army and served his country, educated himself and raised five children who have transcended subsistence living and ignorance because of his inspirational, bullheaded perseverance.

My father and I love to talk about politics. He started out a conservative man who, in my opinion, was freed from that cling-to-the-past mentality by formal and informal education, keen observation and surviving the horrors of poverty, bigotry and war. He's a retired cop, to boot, and that makes the transition even more noteworthy.

It was our conversation on waterboarding that fueled me past the overwhelming task of introducing him. My father enlisted in the army in his late teens and served this country in Korea. He speaks very little of this time. However, I believe it was the beginning of the end of his blind, flag-waving nationalism. My mother once found a box of his war medals and asked him about them. His only answer was to upend them into the trash.

So Dad says that absolutely, unequivocally: waterboarding is torture. It's not an issue worthy of debate and he says that there is nothing more unAmerican than condoning torture.

Then, he said to me,
E, do you know what else is torture?
What Dad?
Sleep deprivation.
[I quell the snarky: You're preaching to the narcoleptic choir here, Dad.]

He says that the army used sleep deprivation on him and his fellow soldiers in Korea. He said it got to the point where you didn't care who you killed or if you were killed—so maddened were you by the need for sleep. After days and days of sleeplessness and mayhem, you became a zombie watching your buddies and the enemy brutally killed.

When you are finally allowed to put your head down even briefly, he said do you know what happens in your nineteen-year-old head?

You dream of a bed.

in other, sadder news

My cousin Charlie is dying.* He is the only cousin my age, my father's brother's eldest son. He waited for a liver transplant for a long time and finally got it. But the donor liver never kicked in. Life support was disconnected a few days ago since there was no brain activity after the seizure that followed liver failure. His wife and three children now wait for the inevitable. My parents will wait for the news and fly up to New Jersey when he dies. This would be a painful enough occurrence if it weren't for the fact that...

...My aunt is also dying. My mother's friend since junior high school and the maid of honor at her wedding, she and my uncle have been especially important constants during the upheaval in our family over the years. She has survived the destruction of diabetes for far longer than anyone ever predicted. She always had a wicked sense of humor and a real concern for my sisters and me. I am deeply saddened as she slips away. Her husband and three daughters join my cousin's family in that waiting limbo where all you can do is review the past, stifle hope and wish for the unthinkable: that your loved one will pass painlessly.

*Charlie died one day after this entry.