Sanity, baby!

 
Dear you:

Swamped by normalcy (working my hilarious retail gig, online essay tutoring, maintaining beach-house-beach-yard-beach-life), I emerge daily to hear the news.  Yes, that would be election drama.  We are so close to November 8.  This will be a Hillary Clinton win.  And here we go again . . . another happy, historical day (a female as POTUS) will be fucked up by those guys (and gals).  Please "enjoy" this excerpt from a Boston Globe article:  

"If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take. . . . I would do whatever I can for my country.”
He then placed a Trump mask on his face and posed for pictures."

I was frozen with horror and rage until I got to the mask moment. 

Does this dude imagine he is part of a V for Vendetta movement?  "V" is opposed to everything Trump.
Yet these dudes and dudettes see themselves as rebels, freedom fighters, ready to lock up the MAJORITY of American citizens who will elect Clinton.

During the Reagan years, I remember being baffled by many things.  One was the fact that he was not (to me) a great communicator.  Vague phrasing and big smiles.  However, not being INSANE, I realized the MAJORITY of my brothers and sisters had voted him into office.  And I had to think about that.  And respect that.  And move the hell on.  That is what liberals do.  (See the Gore v. Bush situation too.)

The contractor featured in the Globe piece is INSANE.  And not in the good way, the cool and swervy Seal's song "Crazy" way.

Who would blatantly try to incite DE-VOLUTION?  Donald.  I wonder what Trump really thinks about the man in the mask?  He thinks he's a tool, a fan, a customer for his future Trump Network (his real motivation for running for POTUS).   But after November 8, neither Donald nor Hillary actually have to deal with the masked contractor.  I do.  You do.  And it won't be pretty.   "They" (yes, I used the awful, vague pronoun) aren't pretty and since it is now very correct to be so fallacious, I'll say it again.  "They" aren't pretty.  And they all should be required to:
1.  Sleep in beautifying mud masks.
2.  Memorize the amazing poem "We Wear the Mask".
3.  Research the author and context of the above poem.
4.  Spend one hour a day reading (can they?) substantive "media" journalism.
5.  Participate in fitness boot camps.  Exercise = Endorphins.  Endophins = Sanity (See the great El Woods in Legally Blonde.)

So, enjoy history being made on 11/08/2016.  And remember, "we" outnumber "them".

XO
Your Joyce

Nature . . . storms and blood and wonder.

Dear you . . .

Red in tooth and claw.  And wet.  And sometimes wonderful.

Finally posting this month (!) to express unease as a tropical storm swirls around the Gulf of Mexico.  I don't want to wish it on someone else, but I also don't want it here.  Random.  Nature.

When is it not wonderful?  It is not wonderful when you wake up to discover murdered kittens on your porch.   Long story about that.  But in summary, my outside-tame pet (Gato) has produced children.  This last batch belongs to a little gal who did not know how to protect them in the bushes/brush.  She brought them on to the porch she knows.  I let it be.  And overnight, something (probably a possum) did not let it/them be.

So, good morning carnage.

I cleaned up the scene and now witness the confused Momma Cat meowing.

She has survived.  And so has Mr. Gato.  This deal I cut with nature, ever optimistic, thinking the odds were always in my free creatures' favor was naive.  I am still a city girl in a not so city place.

Waiting for the next natural event.

Rest in peace, creatures.
Give it your best shot.
I guess that is all any of us can do.

Talk about a tropical depression.

Shaking it off,
Your Joyce

France . . .

 
Dear you,

To honor and celebrate what France is and inspires, enjoy the words of one of that nation's greatest poets:

Be Drunk

Charles Baudelaire, 1821 - 1867

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

The above is compliments of poets.org I believe.

Carry on.

XO

Joyce

Political Hair!

Dear you:

Please consider these two pictures . . .




The top dude is Sir Johnson of the UK "we are out of the European Union" clan.  And you know who the bottom dude is.

Both have interesting hair in common.  Fluffy.  Crazy.  Strangely albino-like.
And under both of those hair-dos (or don'ts) we can find fluffy, crazy, strangely albino-like brains.
Shared nationalism of the 19th-20th century variety and fear of global anything dance around their gray matter.  Which I have now decided leads to hair-reaction!

Both share rebellious hair.  Those strands on each reactionary head long to fly free!  They want to EXIT those heads they reside on.  GET ME OUTTA HERE!

So, don't blame their hair.
Blame their brains.

And that is as deep as I am capable of being this hot June day, 2016.

XO

Your Joyce

Burn baby burn . . . moments in history and the "student body"

 
Dear You!

Last night, our nation saw Hillary Clinton take the stage as the first female nominated by a major party for POTUS.  I am older, a second-wave 70's feminist, so the moment was huge for me.  But we have so much left to do (in addition to working for Clinton and stopping the silly Donald).  Task:  Erase cultural habits controlling female bodies.  This task may be harder than confronting legal and economic challenges, equal treatment under the law and equal pay/opportunity.  Case in point, please read the linked-story about this young American  woman:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/style/montana-teen-stages-protest-after-school-demands-she-wear-bra-i-was-told-a-male-teacher-had-complained-he-was-uncomfortable/ar-AAgNF8n?li=BBnbcA0&ocid=mailsignout

First of all, what kind of "teacher" is this dude?  The man was discomforted by the student's body?  I don't even need to analyze that for you.  He sounds . . . well . . . like many of my college-teaching colleagues at the final-gig here in PCB.  In that zone, there were women who would critique bodies and designate appropriate attire.  Keep in mind, many of these chicks doing the designating looked like hot messes.  Not the fun kind of hot messes, the "I am repressed and alienated from my body and feel the need to control other females who intimidate me with their lack of repression and alienation" kind of hot messes. 

Next, why should anyone wear a bra if she/he does not choose to?  See the above photo.  Yes, Ms. Dolly needs support :)  But I guarantee you that strong woman has never been forced to wear anything she did not damn well want to.

So, here I am in 2016, happy about last night's moment in history and student Juvik's stand.  Here's to Clinton and Juvik . . . and, most importantly, to all those male students who stood with Ms. J. and wore bras on top of their shirts!  How hilarious.  How strong.  They are mighty good men!

Cheers.
XO

Joyce

June 1 - hurricane season begins and status flex continues!

Dear you . . . Observe, please:

This photo (thank you Google images) can be found if you search "Inlet Beach FL".  The old pier, or what remains of it, has been there since I visited the family beach house as a child.  The creature, however, is something I have never encountered in this zone.

What is this gorgeous deer-thing doing here?
What on earth is his chance of survival?

Identify, identify.  I do.  What am I doing here?  What on earth are my chances of survival?

It is gorgeous still.  The Gulf is warm and I dove into it with gratitude today.  I work retail; I work online.  I hustle in happy singularity.  But the strange non-city-life problem continues.  Yes, the population is dense.  Very few green spaces remain, which may explain why the deer is on the beach.  But the community is non-existent.  Good luck connecting with anything that is not "family" targeted, whatever that means.

So, here I am.  On the beach.  Like the deer, I admire the beauty.  Unlike the deer, I think too much.  Today's thoughts are about change; not actual growth-change but vanishing acts. What was here yesterday is gone, or crumbling like the old Inlet Beach Pier.

1.  I have not seen a healthy group of pelicans flying over the Gulf in a while.
2.  My favorite outdoor cat-pet (Coco Loco) disappeared over the Memorial Day weekend.
3.  Our beach is eroding.  Stroll over the walkway to the coast in front of my home and you will see a cliff and a sharp drop-off into water.
4.  One of my silly summer pleasures, So You Think You Can Dance, now features CHILD competitors.  Gone, the struggle between hot, adult dancers.
5.  My zip code is changing and so will my two thousand pieces of ID and account information.  Yes, now Inlet Beach will have its own exclusive zip code.  Please.

Hurricane season is here and I suppose I can only hope we dodge a "big one".  That is a change nobody wants, disaster.  If one hits, big, the last poles of that crumbling pier will surely fall and I will move on to god knows where.  Perhaps I will follow the pelicans and Coco Loco . . . wherever they are.  None of us really knows what is up next.  That is wonderful.  That is sad.  That is fabulous fact!

XO

Happy June :)

Kisses,
Joyce

Quick geography lesson!

Dear you.  Study this map from bigthink.com:



Enough said!

To quote a song from years past "the comedy is that it's serious".

Ciao for now!
Joyce