Ted Cruz, the asshole, and euphemism

 

Dear you,

The rush of everything, the personal, the political, the local, the global, has kept me silent for weeks.  But today, I feel the need to jot something down, to clarify these rushes of everything in my head.

The personal:  My sweet cat is declining.  Those little bumps on her body and the big one on her head are signs of something bad; surgery would not have helped.  She is barely eating, a few bites a day at best, and sleeping a lot.  Her playful self is history, but she likes to be combed and petted and sung to.  That I can do.  She likes my version of Duran Duran’s “Rio”.  I use her name instead of Rio: “Her name is Vivo and she dances on the sand, just like that river twisting through the dusty land.”  Anyway, I am not rushing to “put her down” because she seems not to be in pain and hasn’t withdrawn totally.  I am running a cat hospice.  This is a learning experience since my life motto has always been “ADE”, avoid domestic entanglements.  They will mess with your head and hurt.  My head is messed with and I do hurt.  Sometimes I wake up crying.  But I think I am learning from this.  A lesson not chosen, but here it is.  My little lion-queen is leaving.  No. I am done with euphemisms.  Just say it; my gorgeous girl is dying.

The political:  Florida politics just keep getting more jaw-droppingly dumb as #DeathSantis continues his fight against us Woke folks.  The “Don’t Say Gay” thing has drawn national attention and even put Disney on the spot.  That corporation is mildly resisting his lunacy and that pisses Ron off.  On the book banning front, another one of the Gov’s beloved culture wars, my local library is dealing with a complaint from a MAGA mom who wants The Little Library (a child’s book by Margaret McNamara) pulled from the shelf. The story features a non-binary character named Librarian Beck.  And this is scary why, MAGA mom?  Whatever your fears, you do not have the power to pull a book from a public library shelf.  At least now you don’t.  #DeathSantis and his crew are working on that too.  These morality police are everywhere, creating laws to accommodate their narrow minds, their self-serving conservatism.  No.  I am not letting them off the hook with the “conservative” euphemism, let’s just call them Pond Scum.

The local:  Last week, there was a police crime scene trailer parked in my condo complex lot. The trailer was functioning as an alcohol breathalyzer test site and symbol of authority, meant to deter bad behavior.  Its presence did take a little heat off the locals, who, like me, are forced to act like temporary cops.  However, it didn’t stop some of the worst we’ve ever seen: property invasion, burglary, and vandalism of the food trucks at Seaside.  The Seaside neighborhood issued an 8 PM curfew for all unaccompanied minors last year and did so again this year. But it did not deter the hillbilly children of Tennessee, the state that took over that particular week.  They care about curfews as much as Putin cares about sanctions.  Despite the “nice rules”, they invaded Seaside.  As Walton County officials warned us back in February, a curfew is “not something that will work”.  Well, it didn’t.  It simply put a target on neighborhoods like mine that don’t have curfews. “Let’s go to Seagrove; there’s a cop trailer there, but they’re just busting underage drinkers.  And ignore that lady in the leopard print pajamas (that would be me); she doesn’t have a gun anyway.  Let’s go!  We can fuck that place up till sunrise!”  Spring breakers going a little wild, right?  Just teens being teeny. No, no. Call them what they are:  The Aberrational Progeny of Pond Scum who turn my neighborhood into a crime scene.

The global:  Still, I have Ukraine on my brain.   Feeling muted, unable to do anything other than send money to the IRC (International Rescue Committee, donate please, @Rescue.Org), I just watch and listen, hoping for good news.  Minutes ago, I see this alert on the TV screen: “Russia seizes Mariupol aid convoy.”  Putin is committing war crimes.  He may use chemical weapons. And we are still chatting about fine lines and fear of acceleration.  It is day 28 of this . . . conflict? No, this is war.  Don’t euphemize this slaughter.  It is war.

Enough.  I need a break, something bright, no euphemism or distraction, but something true and lovely or at least side-splittingly funny.  Exhale.  Look up at the TV.  There he is! The comedy gift that keeps on giving. Ted Cruz is screeching at Judge Brown Jackson again, just like yesterday.  But yesterday was even funnier.  Referring to a book called Antiracist Baby, something on a reading list for a school where Jackson serves on the board, Cruz posed this question: “Do you agree with this book, that is being taught with kids, that babies are racist?”

And just like that, I laugh. 

At a Supreme Court nomination hearing, a sitting senator puts up a chart about a kid’s book and asks the nominee if they think babies are racist.  What in the hell is up with Ted?  There never has been a euphemism for Ted; he’s always just been an Asshole. Ted the Asshole.  Asshole Ted.

And so, another day of learning winds down.  I learned I can reject euphemisms, see things as they are, deal with the reality of death, war, pond scum people, and still laugh.  All that, thanks to Ted.  Ted the Asshole.  Asshole Ted.

Love,

Joyce

Erasure

 Dear you,

A clever gentleman I follow on Twitter said this was his current morning routine:  wake, check on Zelenskky, coffee.  That is pretty much my morning agenda too, except “feed the cat and clean her litter box” comes before coffee.  This man and I are not alone in our obsession, and for good reason.  Ukraine falls, we all fall, in major or minor ways.  But something posing as "life" seems to be going on as usual.  In states like my Florida, the effort to avoid all this uncomfortable news is requiring Herculean effort.  The big sell for our tourist season is on.  Condos, hotels, and motels are booked up.  The Panama City Beach bars are in EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!!! mode.  See Hammerhead Fred’s ad:

“Party like a SHARK STAR at Freds!”  (Notice the lack of the possessive apostrophe.  Why should vacationers care about punctuation?)  This joint “gets the party started with 40 FREE KEGS of ice cold draft nightly”.  WooHoo!

40 kegs of reality erasure.  I wonder what happens after the free stuff taps out.

And at our state capitol, the ghoulish representatives and senators are really having fun this session.  Our new “don’t say gay” bill passed.  Its intention is to (of course) protect the little ones from inappropriate discussions of you-know-what.  I think we know what it really is all about, erasure.  Under the mask of typical puritanical conservatism, there are uglier faces.  The visages of enraged, homophobic, religious zealots.  They want to ban people, pull them off the shelf in the same way they seek to ban books.  Just make them go away.

So many bills like this are ready for the gov's signature, bringing us one step closer to state enforced reality erasure.

My phone’s Google app is in on the erasing game too, perhaps trying to derail my continual searches about Ukraine and other “weighty” topics. When I hit the big G icon on the screen, I am fed a list of articles meant just for me and my reality erasing pleasure.  I kid you not, these came up 30 minutes ago and they are real titles, not Onion satire:

“Meet a 74-year-old woman who became a model in retirement”

“Twilight star Ashley Greene says that it was only natural for the cast to develop crushes on each other”

“Woman forbids child from visiting Disneyland due to photo policy”

“Man who spent $58,000 in COVID relief on Pokemon Charizard card is sent to prison”

“Giant spiders expected to drop from sky across the East Coast this spring”

OK.  These were momentarily distracting.  I wondered, is this senior model forced to strut the catwalk in adult diapers because the designers have an age bias and fear she'll soil their creations? Did the Twilight affairs involve cross-species, werewolf-vampire hookups? Considering all the creepy things you can see at Disneyland, why would a photo identification policy be the big deal-breaker? What the fuck is a Charizard card?  Can those spiders turn us into Spider-people?  (That would be cool.)

The Google reality erasing capability is pretty weak; minutes later, I am back on the reality train.  That’s fine. I like it there. The real world is also wonderful.  I know this because she lives there, a magnificent Ukrainian fighter who refuses to be erased.  I close with her image:

#WeStandWithUkraine

#ResistErasure

A Star Is Born

Dear you,

Good morning, 2/27/2022.  I woke to some good news; the Ukrainians pushed Russian troops out of Kharkiv and now have regained control of their second largest city.  Yes!  But then again, there was also news about Pooty Putin doing something nuclear.  Putting his nuke handlers on high alert or whatever.  Here we go again.  Flashback to childhood and those drills.  At least this time I am sixty something instead of six and nobody can make me duck and cover under my DESK.  Seriously, even a six-year-old knew this was a pointless thing to do. Those Alabama pine, lift-top desks did offer helpful graffiti warnings such as “Patsy Digby smells like baloney” and “Mr. Guthrie is a pervert”, but effective protection against nuclear radiation?  Um, no.  But I digress, back to Ukraine and the topic of “a star is born”.  Yes indeed, we (well, the civilized and attractive among us) are in love with their President, Volodymyr Zelensky (Zelenskyy/Zelenskky, lots of different spellings appear in media reports; Americans aren’t good with consonant overload).

Beautiful and badass, he has been praised globally.  My favorite Twitter comment this week:

“Going from a comedian on tv to staring down Russia tanks, planes, choppers, and bombs and you don’t even blink is the most gangster shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” (@BlackKnight10k)

And then there was Z’s response to our suggestion that he evacuate Kyiv with our assistance, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Now that is some gangster shit.  I have such a crush on this man.  And a respect-crush on another star of the week, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.  Stellar legal history and untouchable in terms of character.  But the GOP will do its best to twist her record since she probably doesn’t like beer.  She will be on the court.  They can say what they want; she’ll handle it.  Like Zelensky, she won’t blink. However, it has got to be daunting to take on a job like that.  SCOTUS.  No expiration date assigned.  Just her and the other eight, twenty-four seven.  Of course, Judge Jackson is undaunted.  But I enjoyed The Onion’s satirical riff about her imaginary doubts:

. . .  “in the hours after learning she had been chosen as the first black woman to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson reportedly weighed making history against the soul-crushing thought of spending time with these people.  ‘Of course, sitting on the highest court in the land would be a tremendously meaningful position for someone like me to hold, but then again, it just kills me inside – absolutely kills me – to think of spending any time at all with these people,” Jackson said on Friday, furrowing her brow as she considered the symbolic impact of her elevation to the Supreme Court alongside the sheer deadening idea of seeing Neil Gorsuch’s stupid fucking face every day for the better part of the next half century.”

Better Neil than Brett.

Satire aside, Judge Jackson is on the record for this declaration from a 2019 decision: “Presidents are not kings.”  That is a judicial point of view we dearly need now, having barely survived a previous would-be king who is still lurking about . . . like Pooty and pervy Mr. Guthrie.

Anyway, this week had its shining moments.  President Z and Judge J, they won’t blink. They make me feel safer, momentarily not compelled to hide under a metaphorical desk.  Sure, nobody can save me from dictators with nukes or Patsy’s body odor, but Zelensky and Jackson give me inspirational badass ammunition.  Two stars in our partly-cloudy 2022 skies.

Cue applause.

Joyce

Tweeting Under The Influence

 Dear you,

This new year is looney, loonier than even I expected.  And while the barrage of heavy news and jaw-dropping examples of far-right madness make me want to evacuate somewhere, I don't know exactly where that sane place might be.  This is, after all, global in nature.  Worldwide lunacy is the new pandemic.  See it and hear it loud on "The Twitter".  I am not referring to lucid reports of crazy behavior provided by journalists (like Joy Reid reporting on the fascist rules being codified in not so free Florida), but reactions to those reported events.  Sometimes I wish everyone would just shut the hell up.  Even me.  Time for a little Tweeting restraint.  How about counting to ten before you hit "post"?  Hear that, Charlie Kirk?  We are all still scratching our heads about your assessment of the Super Bowl Halftime show as "sexual anarchy".  Well, I cannot school Charlie.  But I can school myself, or try to, before publishing my random lunacy. (Which I am doing right now anyway.) For example, I COULD HAVE tweeted the following:

@Evangelicals - Quit moaning about how betrayed you feel because some of your far-right members are acting so not Christlike.  What is wrong with you?  What is up with all the hand wringing and pearl clutching?  Your former friends in the faith are cult members.  You joined a crappy club and bought into a silly mission.  Let it go, snowflake.  Go feed the hungry or something.  #ShutTheHellUp.

@WalmartVisionCenter - Could you please fire Gigi?  After my exam and obvious diagnosis as near-sighted (still after all these years), why on earth was she trying to sell me fucking READERS??  Can she not understand the words "glasses for driving and distance vision only"?  And even after that finally sunk in, Gigi inquired about my need for glasses while using my laptop.  AGAIN, Gigi, glasses for driving and distance only.  What, she thinks my arms are thirty feet long and I am typing while seated on the other side of the living room?   And I really don't need her to wish me "a blessed day" when I storm out of the store. Gigi needs to #ShutTheHellUp.

@GovRonDeSantis - You are an unimaginable bastard. I hate your hair.  #ShutTheHellUp.

@BravoTV - God in heaven, would you please please please stop showing the worst movies ever over and over and over again.  How many times do I have to watch Adam Sandler act like a moron or Reese Witherspoon convert back to her Confederate ways?  And that Andy Cohen shade-show at night where he revels in people trashing each other, I know he OWNS the channel, but he needs to #ShutTheHellUp.

@CollegeAlumDepartment - I am not giving you any more money. I earned my degree.  You can't take it back.  Quit harassing me like a Trump University sales rep.  Your emails are an egregious insult to my intelligence.  See?  I learned some words at your University.  I am, however, not interested in hearing yours, so #ShutTheHellUp.

@CharlieKirk - What the hell is sexual anarchy?  Were you referring to those hot people dancing or Snoop Dog's geriatric jogging outfit? You need to install a "bad tweet" blocker button on your phone and stay in your Fox News lane.  And you know what?  Sexual Anarchy actually sounds pretty fabulous.  Give me sexual anarchy or give me death.  That's right!  I am WOKE to the potential of sexual anarchy, so you need to just #ShutTheHellUp.

@TheJoyceFleming - Stop ranting.  You sound like a lunatic.  #ShutTheHellUp.

Done.

Love,

Joyce

Groundhog Deja Vu

 

Dear you,

It’s Groundhog Day.  Again.  In addition to whether Phil sees his shadow or not and returns to his burrow, signaling more weeks of hard winter (which he did), the day now “celebrates” a situation where tedious events recur in the same way.  And here we are facing a longer winter (again) and tedious events (again).  This experiential déjà vu is personal and public, my daily regimen is as repetitive as current/recurrent events.  In tandem, it rolls like this:

Wake and freshen the kitty’s water, serve her canned food of choice, and clean her litter box.  [Breaking not-news: we are sending troops to Eastern Europe (or somewhere).]

Pour a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette while staring at the morning sky.  [Breaking not-news:  Conservatives across the country are actively banning books from schools and libraries claiming they create discomfort.]

Pour a second cup of coffee and smoke another cigarette while staring at Mika and Joe on Morning Joe. [Breaking not-news:  Defeated ex-POTUS Trump said something stupid. And scary.]

Groom the kitty and hand-feed her what remains in her canned food bowl. [Breaking not-news:  Tourist numbers for Panama City Beach and 30A communities are expected to be massive for 2022.  Out-of-state owner-investors are jamming more bunk beds into these little condos and salivating over the riches (and pollution and trash) rolling in.]

Make the bed, fluff pillows, tidy up and hit the floor for push-ups, crunches, and yoga stretches.  [Breaking news:  January 6 committee member states Trump is “tampering with witnesses”; yes, politicians are often beyond corrupt.]

Pound down water and orange juice and finish workout with weights for shoulders, back, chest and arms. [Breaking news:  Overstuffed dryer causes house fire in Bay County.  (The dryer thing doesn’t necessarily repeat itself as the star of local stupidity incidents, but just fill in the blank with another appliance; electric ear-hair trimmer, toaster, curling iron, George Forman grill, etc.  Just saying that accidents caused by stupid recur here on the daily.)]

Eat a tasty, nutritious brunch, wash dishes, and execute dental hygiene routine.  [Breaking news: Governor DeSantis said something stupid.  And scary.]

Bathe and dress for tasking and out-and-abouting. [Breaking news:  There is yet another Covid variant, “stealth Omicron”.]

Before online work, check realtor.com for any fabulous new townhomes or houses that don’t cost a million or more.  [Breaking news:  The housing crisis goes on and everything is getting pricey.  (A refill for kitty’s lint roller jumped from around $2.50 to $3.69.  She needs to stop shedding.)]

Work and take occasional smoke and juice breaks.  [Breaking news:  Nazis rally in Florida.]

Wrap it up for the day and go for a power walk with radio-headphones on blast. [Breaking news:  Local radio stations (other than the NPR affiliate) don’t deliver any news.  Except for traffic and dryer fire updates.]

Return to the condo for sunset, more kitty feeding, and cocktails, for me, not her. [Breaking news:  Recent studies show more people are turning to alcohol to cope with “unprecedented uncertainty and stress”.]

Watch something mindless on BRAVO channel, get annoyed by mindlessness, hit the off button on the remote and open a good book, fall asleep drooling on that good book.  [Breaking news:  A survey revealed one in three adults hit the snooze button three times in the morning. People prefer not being awake.]

There it is.  Repeat. Rewind. Recur. Over and over, we go to war, silence provocative truth tellers, elect idiots to office, swarm to tourist zones like locusts, react with shock when a virus mutates, do stupid things with appliances, decide we cannot live without lint rollers, self-medicate, and avoid waking up and facing yet another Groundhog Day.

To close, something from the 90s movie Groundhog Day:

Phil:  What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing that you did mattered?

Ralph replies:  That about sums it up for me.

That about sums it up for me too. 

Love, Joyce

Mr. Talley and Drektitude . . .

Dear you,

Style.  The art of style has lost a leader.  Andre Leon Talley is gone, a fashion icon, pop culture innovator, and inventor of the concept “Drektitude”.  He defined that as “the lowest point in the lowest ebb.  It could be your look.  It could be your shoes.  It could be that you’re standing wrong.  ‘Drek’ is a total, total, total hot mess.”

Unfortunately, before his passing, he probably had to witness massive Drek on display at that “T” rally in Arizona last weekend, quite the lowest ebb.  The crowd was as expected, the usual cast of characters, and loaded with way too many citizens who should know better.  I mean women in particular.  See the old photo above.  Their look, their pollical and (anti)intellectual stances, alas, all wrong.  I can’t see their shoes, but I imagine something tragic from Shoe Carnival.  Poor dears, a “total, total, total hot mess.”  I wonder if all the crimes against style we see at those rallies irked Talley. It had to at least depress him. But he had a way of rising above the worst type of drek. I wish I could rise like that in the face of so so so much ongoing Drektitude.

In my little world, Drektitude appeared in the form of someone pretending to be me. He/she gave my phone number and email address to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Bless their hearts.  The JWs emailed and then later called about “my request” to be visited by their missionaries or something.  I placed the emails in spam land and when I got a call, I had to forcefully repeat over and over that I had made no such request.  After answering pointless questions about my Bible literacy or lack thereof (saying I was a bit of a heretic didn’t help), I finally convinced the JW caller to delete my contact information and try to find out who posed as me.  This was fraud, a minor level fraud that might have just been a practical joke.  Still, it reeked of Drektitude. 

More Drektitude has appeared and it is parked behind building 13.  The vehicle’s rear bumper has the remains of a sticker, most of the message scratched away in a haphazard manner. All that remains is the first letter, a capital G, and a small case “s” at the end. What was the original statement?  “Go Warthogs?” “Get off my ass?”  I stood there for a minute playing parking lot Wheel of Fortune and then decided to “read” the car itself to help me fill in the message gap. The windows, filthy and dotted with tiny handprints. The entire back seat and all floors, littered with beef jerky wrappers, Dorito bags, crushed Marlboro packs, random tube socks turned inside out, and lots and lots of rope.  Rope? The car is loaded with serial killer drek.  Note to self:  avoid contact with building 13 occupants unless armed with pepper spray.

Final Drektitude exhibit for your consideration:  my leopard print cotton top I am wearing right now.  It embodies every “oh honey no” quality associated with senior lady clothing:  the cut is off the shoulder but not broad enough to pass as a retro-Flasdance look, the print is so wrong – leopards don’t sport huge melanoma looking blotches, and the base color is gas station bathroom beige.  I like it because it’s comfortable and soft and have avoided public Drektitude by not wearing it outside the condo; except when I dash to the garbage dumpster back by the serial killer car.  In private, and unwittingly at times in public, I too am a hot, hot mess.

Talley said, “people need to be edited”.  I know the rally ladies, religious recruiter/joker, creepy car owner and leopard topped me should keep that in mind.  People need to be edited.

I love that.  I love him, floating above us and reminding us always to lean towards beauty: “Beauty is health.  Health is beauty.”  Leave it to Talley to refine a classic platitude and edit it with style.  The complete opposite of Drektitude.

Salud!

Joyce

2022 resolution and reflection

 Dear you,

A new year.  A time to move on.  A time to look back and move forward.  A time to prepare.

Today is January 6, 2022.  One year after the violent attempt to overturn the results of an election, we are still there, back there in 2021.  We reflect, we think back to where we were when we got the news, we watch the ceremony in DC and listen to those who were there. Others, millions sadly, are not reflecting.  They’re having little 1/6 anniversary parties.  I am pretty sure that Peavy dude down the street is hosting something “wild”.  That guy is still flying his flags echoing the big lie and sending a coded f-you message to Biden.  He is also accumulating fines for those flags, not paying them, and claiming he is taking the fight all the way to the Supreme Court.  Two-thirds of voters locally are down with Peavy and soldiering up for the ultimate culture war.  I take comfort in the remaining 1/3; we do things like read, push for environmental sanity, and cry during ASPCA commercials. We are the Thirty-Three Percenters.  Sounds a lot beefier, mathematically speaking, than the far-right Three Percenters, those friends of Peavy and the defeated president. Some of their members were part of last year’s Capitol siege.  One of them is featured in a story in today’s Business Insider.  Meet Guy Reffit.

Reffit is from Texas.  He came to the Capitol on 1/6/2021 to support the defeated president.  He was armed with a semi-automatic weapon.  Reffit has since been arrested and now waits for his trial with other defendants at a facility in DC.  Here is the troubling part; his son (Jackson) is the one who turned him in to the FBI.  His son did the right thing, but still, it’s his dad.  This is where we are a year later.  Yes, this nation is politically divided.  That’s not news.  But we are splitting apart as human beings, normal ties of affection and loyalty are being tested.  I feel for Jackson Reffit. 

What do you do if your parent, best friend, or child joins a violent movement spearheaded by one big liar?  It’s pretty easy to say I’d turn in the Peavy flag dude without hesitation if I knew he was part of 1/6/2021.  (Well, he was.  Just not in the gun-toting, glass smashing, defecating on the chamber floors kind of way.) But what if it was my dad?

No.  I don’t even have to think about that because my dad was a Republican, but he was the Liz Cheney kind.  He didn’t hang with trash and he loved democracy. And I don’t have to worry about rogue far-right offspring because I chose not to have children.  “Friends” might be up for grabs, but I’m way too selective to accidentally befriend an idiot.  But still, would I, could I, rat out someone close to me?   I cannot believe these are the kind of decisions and theoretical scenarios we deal with now. It really, really sucks.  

This is where we are on the anniversary of January 6, 2021. Democracy held, but many hearts (and homes) are broken. Still, I believe the 33 1/3% in my locale and the actual majority in the rest of the nation will hold on and not give up.  There is an undercurrent of hope:

“Listen now as Earth sheds her skin/Listen as the generations move/One against the other to make power/We are bringing in a new story.”

That is an excerpt from “Prepare” by Joy Harjo.  It informs my resolution for 2022.  I resolve to listen, prepare, and bring in this new story.

Begin.

Joyce