I bought a condo on the Redneck Riviera and am perplexed by tourists from Missouri . . .

Dear you,

After my exile from the family Inlet Beach home, I bought a condo down the road, a county highway you may know as 30A, a smoke-and-mirrors zone doing its best to attract visitors with more money and more teeth than our average guest.  The complex is called Beachwood Villas in the Seagrove Beach zone.  I knew very few owners actually LIVE here, but I was in denial.  It is a cute place and I don't have to take care of the pool!  How bad could it be?  The guests are chilling on "vacay".  Most have small children, so the odds of them taking over the pool and blasting gangster rap at 2 A.M. are non-existent.

Nine months after purchase I can tell you this:  I would prefer pool partiers who blast gangster rap at 2 A.M.

What we have here is 50/50 mix.  Half of the guests are normal or even fabulous.  The other half is, well, deplorable.  And having studied the range of visitors for a while, I have compiled a top 5 "worst" list; it ranks the states who send the Villas the scariest people ever:

1. Missouri 

2. Texas

3. Georgia 

4. Louisiana 

5. Tennessee

Now, I am not including city people in this judgmental game.  And I am not generalizing about everybody in those states.  However, it is what it is.  Let's focus on the "winning" state, coming in at number one.  Why Missouri?  Because their representative visitors are maniacs who jam a "family" of ten into a condo.  Maniacs who have lots of emotionally whacked children.  Maniacs who throw their garbage bags ON TOP of the dumpster or just leave dirty diapers, pizza boxes, and "Naty-lite" beer cans in the parking lot.  Maniacs that I have to run out of the pool area at night because they can't read the "closed at 10 P.M." sign.

I am being unkind.  I know that.  But it is TRUE!  I know if I was visiting their state, I would bring my best self and be respectful.  But why would I vacation in Missouri?  Even if I could ignore their latest anti-choice/anti-female rulings and not boycott the state, why would I go there?  Other than the city of St. Louis, what draws the tourists?  I thought about this and decided to give the state another chance.  To find out where to go in good old MO, I "Googled" around for a while and found the following (compliments of insider.com):

Nuclear Waste Adventure Trail and Museum in Weldon Spring, Missouri

 

"This giant pile of rocks is essentially a mound of nuclear waste.

To be precise, it's 1.5 million cubic yards of hazardous waste entombed to create a small mountain that marks the spot that was home to the country's largest explosives factory turned uranium ore processing plant until 1966. After being left abandoned for over two decades, the US Department of Energy decided to cover it with rocks. Now, it features a museum and covered up TNT, asbestos, mercury, radium and radioactive uranium. Enjoy!"

A giant pile of radioactive waste.  Well, that would be an adventure.

I am not going there.

However, perhaps we locals experiencing the shock and awe of these "show me state" invaders can find ways to upsell that nuclear waste trail and museum. [What the hell is in that museum anyway?] If we dump money into their advertising attempts and build a big Nuclear Waste Adventure Swimming Pool next to the museum, then these Missouri folks might just "vacay" close to home.  And leave us alone!

We could do that!  Or we could just stop selling "Naty-lites"; that would be a deal breaker for our maniacal guests.

That is all for now.  I have to go clean the parking lot.

Happy June 26 to you all, even those in the top 5 list! 

Love,
Joyce

Happy Birthday in the rearview mirror!

Dear you -
 June 12th, I turned 64 and am happy to be on planet Earth (even as she melts and rages at us for being destructive jerks).  Procrastinating today and veering away from my little online-writing-tutor-gig, I googled fitness options here in my 30A/Seagrove Beach zone.  A website for a yoga-heavy joint to the west contained bios of instructors.  This one killed me.  I am a grown ass woman and (supposedly) not bothered by other people's eye-popping resumes/biographies, but this one made me feel really Type-B:

Prudence Bruns

Prudence followed an early interest in meditation and yoga in 1966 at the age of 18 when she started Transcendental Meditation®.  In 1966-67, she studied with Swami Satchidananda to be a yoga instructor, eventually opening and running the Integral Yoga Institute in Boston.  In 1968, she went to India to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and was made a teacher of Transcendental Meditation®.  It was at this course that she met the Beatles and they wrote the song “Dear Prudence” about her. After marrying and while raising a family, she began working in film as Art Department Coordinator for Woody Allen, and as a producer with artists such as Andy Kaufman, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel, award winning directors Bruce Beresford and Alan Bridges and Tony award winning writer Hugh Leonard.  She is best known for originating and developing the feature film Widow’s Peak, starring her sister, Mia Farrow, Joan Plowright and Natasha Richardson.  She received co-producing credit. While continuing to teach Transcendental Meditation® over the many years, Prudence’s interest in yoga never wavered.  After raising 3 children, she returned to school receiving her PhD in South Asian Studies, Sanskrit, from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2007. She has published her memoir,Dear Prudence: The Story Behind the Song, a book on Ayurvedic pulse diagnosis along with articles on South Asian studies, world religion, Ayurvedic medicine and healthy living for academic journals and magazines.  She has presented at numerous conferences such as at Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Hawaii, University of California at Berkeley and taught courses at UC Berkeley and Rutgers University. She and her husband live in Seagrove Beach and have three children and four grandchildren.

The Beatles wrote a song about her.

All the other stuff might be mind-blowing to others, you know, like the PhD and Woody Allen thing, but I envy that muse moment!

Dear Prudence, good for you.  Now, can you please help me find a workout that has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOGA AND TRANSCENDENCE????!!!

Love,
Joyce

Is it just me, or is something odd happening here?

Dear you,

Wednesday, the Democratic Women's Club of Walton County met the Northwest FLA representative for our Senator (Marco Rubio) at the local Chamber of Commerce.  I was there with four other members.  Everything was just ODD:

1.  I entered to find an employee of the COC offering to pour water for attendees.  No, that is not odd.  What was odd is that she was wearing this huge flowered dress, black socks with sandals, and white MIME makeup.  What was that all about?  Perhaps she would prefer I see it as Kabuki-drag.  Maybe it was mime-day at the COC.  I still don't know.  However, I did stare.

2.  During the meeting, a couple of the senior members were all freaked out over ROBOCALL SCAMS.  Seriously, is this the most pressing issue of our day?  I kept having to talk over people to get heard and tried to insert questions about election hacking, affordable housing shortages, and environmental dramas unique to FLA.  And I might as well have been speaking Greek.  Or better yet, just miming my message.

The meeting was a drag.  But the odd mime-face woman was at least interesting, unexpected.

That's all I got for now . . .
Love and kisses,
Joyce

Hot, flat, crowded . . . Happy Memorial Day!

Dear you,

Apparently the beach of your dreams awaits, but it is NOT here on 30A in the Panhandle of FL.  I expected tourist action and jammed periods such as spring break when I bought this condo, but this Memorial Day thing is the worst.  Big trucks.  Massive families sleeping twelve to a three bedroom unit.  Screaming kids.  Drunk adults sitting in the parking lot (literally on the asphalt) smoking cigarettes and talking to themselves (angrily).

I have already come to grips with the fact that I cannot live here and am regretting the purchase as residence.  But the hoards are getting bigger and bigger and I don't know why.  We have no entertainment, really, and the roads are a nightmare.  30A itself is moving at around 5 MPH because out-of-state-gawkers are traveling in golf carts, gawking at 5 MPH.

Still annoyed over this situation in Florida.  Our coastal regions are being sold off to out of state folks who rent to the "sleeps twelve to a unit"-golf cart gawking folks.  And I am supposed to be grateful for the business?  Not grateful.  Just cranky.

That sorrow aside, I am thinking about all those who served us and serve us now, those who protect and defend.  Cheers to you.  Perhaps you can help Floridians recapture their invaded territory?

Leaning in nevertheless . . .
Forcing myself to claim my space in the pool and the shoreline . . .

Love,
Joyce

Aiming for chill...

Dear you,

It is a hot Sunday in Seagrove Beach and this is only May.  The parking lot here in condo land is full.  Children are screaming. The living is not easy and the cotton is not high.

So, the remedy is to be chilling like cat Vivo pictured on the table. Enjoy a lunch of fresh tomato slices and tuna salad . . . And do not think about how those fish were caught.

Yes, even as I try to erase concern and have a thoughtless Sunday, my lunch poses an ethical challenge.

Sigh.

And the advice of Marcus Aurelius is in my head too:
So we need to hurry.
Not just because we move daily closer to death but also because our understanding - our grasp of the world - May be gone before we get there.

Cheery thoughts, no?

Love,
J

Welcome back to shock and awe!

Dear you -

I am a very undisciplined blogger.  It seems whenever I post I refer to time passed since last entry.  Whatever.  Let's just say I have been busy adapting to life as a resident in a tourist district (30A they proudly call the zone) and just knocking out some work for my online gig and maintaining fitness (and cats).

But attention must be paid.

Alabama just passed a law making abortion illegal.  Physicians who perform the procedure will be charged with a felony and face up to 99 years in prison.

As if this is anyone's business other than THE woman, the girl, who is IN the situation.

Yes, this is life in Trump-land.  Resist and persist as we can, the onslaught continues.

And now this.

No wonder so many lit teachers were assigning The Handmaid's Tale to students and no wonder too that the recent televised version resonated with so many . . . in terms of dystopian relevance.

A woman's body is her business.
A woman's body is her business.
A woman's body is her business.

This is NOT debatable.

Shut the hell up, those of you (male or female) who have your views on when "life begins" or are serving your "faith".  Attend to your body.  And leave other people's bodies alone.

I can only sign off with a base-line non-eloquent declaration:  fuck these controlling, Puritanical freaks.

And how was your day dear?

Love,
Joyce XO

Political slogans and the polar vortex . . .

Dear you:

Before I Google this fabulous pro-cocktail candidate noted above and refresh my election history database, I want to talk about slogans.  As you might expect, I am liking Kamala Harris as a candidate for POTUS.  I have appreciated her work as a senator and currently consider myself a supporter.  Her slogan, however, revealed this weekend, really confuses me:

Kamala Harris for the People

Well, I guess that beats being against the people.  But what does that mean?  I am "for" cold beer (like one of our SCOTUS dudes).  But what does that mean?  What am I considering doing in terms of cold beer?  Am I defending it from attacks by HOT BEER people?  And about that noun, people.  I have never liked the sound, literally the "pee pull" thing.  I resent being clumped into this "pee pull" thing.  What if I'm a hybrid, part cat part "pee pull"?

Anyway, I wondered why we even have slogans.  Why do we have to use them at all in elections?  But this is the way it is.  So, using my name, I've come up with the following for my future presidential run:

1.  Fleming for FUN!!!!
2.  JUMP for Joyce
3.  Flaming Fleming will BURN THE SWAMP
4.  Joyce will BUILD THAT BOUNCY HOUSE!
5.  Fleming and Capri Cigarettes!
6.  Vote Joyce or DIE TRYING
7.  Joyce needs a JOB!
8.  Support Joyce and STOP the polar vortex!

The game ends with number eight since that thing, for real, is rocking the USA.  Really cold.  Cold as in even Chicago residents are hiding.  Something is wrong with our weather.  The extremes are problematic, causes for political action and concern.  But I guess substantive points about justice, climate, or any other real thing won't fit onto a button or bumper sticker.  Therefore, even the brilliant Kamala simply surrendered and said OK to "for the people".

Stay warm, everyone.
Kisses and good wishes,
Your Joyce