Monday, September 27, 2004, 4:12 peeyem
I have been following the weather, Campaign 2004, the war, the civilian beheadings in Iraq, the deportation of Yusuf Islam (née Cat Stephens), Mt. Saint Helens, the rise of HipHop, the fall of the low-rise jean, and the Israeli bomb warning to Syria. As near as I can tell, the plague of locusts should commence at about 2 tomorrow afternoon.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004, 3:18 peeyem
No more of that nonsense...
I
was just sitting here in my office, collating many pieces of paper and
putting labels on envelopes when I started, inexplicably, thinking about
Special K. This, in turn, reminded me of "pinch an inch."
Imagine my horror when I was able to pinch not just one inch, but nearly
six, depending on how you measure.
You can bet I won't be doing that again.
Monday, September 20, 2004, 3:56 peeyem
My high school reunion is coming up.
I think I might actually be invited to this one. I've only been invited to one other one. I don't think I actually crossed anyone's mind for the last one. I don't know why I have this time, frankly.
I don't want to go. I don't want to hold in my stomach for that long. And the people I'm interested in, I can locate on my own without going to a reunion. The only person I'd actually get in the car and drive for is Beverly; not that I wouldn't drive to see the others, but I'd want them to meet me in the middle. Beverly, I'd drive all the way to.
On the other hand, I am curious to know whatever became of many of them, probably much more so than they are about me.
I don't know what I'll have to talk about. I'm not married, I don't have children, and I don't live there. Most of my life is here. I don't even know any gossip.
Wanda, the woman at the fluffy-fold thinks I should go because I've aged remarkably well and don't look nearly my age. I should start slipping Wanda a twenty every time I see her.
Thursday, September 16, 2004, 3:00 peeyem
Stahm's acomin'! Stahm's acomin'!
I feel like Katherine Hepburn when I say that.
But storms are coming.
They've already gone to some places. I expect they'll hit pretty hard in Albany, where my mother and my stepsugar and my brother are. I called and asked if they're battened down pretty good and Mama said she'd been running around getting things together like a chicken with her head cut off, but she thinks she has everything, and she thinks if the power goes out, they're going to get awfuldamntired of vienna sausages and deviled ham.
I haven't spoken with my daddy, though I left a message for him. I might ought to try to run him down before I leave work today.
As for me, I have replaced the batteries in my maglight, bought a new maglight, an entire brick of D-cell batteries for both, some of those light stick things you crack on the counter that light up a room for something ridiculous like 17 hours, a giant tarp (in case the neighhbor's pine tree falls on the house), some tarp stakes, and a little lantern thing that I can read by, because it won't do to have me getting bored, because when I get bored, I tend to get in trouble. And I have a hundred dollar bill in case I need to moneywhip my way out of a situation or into one (like one involving getting the tarp put over the house, since I don't imagine I can do it by myself).
I also have enough bananas, mayonnaise, and light bread to keep me in banana sammiches for the next several days. Laugh if you want to, but in the grand scheme of things, banana sammiches are about the only think I can think of that I don't get tired of.
Now that I'm so well prepared, it probably will blow through here on little cat paws. Maybe I ought to go get the car washed for good measure, though.
It is now raining sideways.
The most excellent news is:
REVEREND WHITLEY'S GOING TO BE A GRANDFATHER!
Friday, September 10, 2004, 11:47 ayem
Tomorrow marks the first time that 9/11 will fall on a Saturday. I don't know why that's significant, but it is, to me.
This year, though, we haven't had any terrorist attacks on our own soil. Instead, our soldiers are on foreign soil, and ourofficial body count has now risen to over 1000. The British army is behind us, with an official body count at 64.
Last weekend, a 9-year-old asked me why we were at war in Iraq. I told her why and she didn't understand why we thought it was our business to go somewhere else and liberate people who hadn't asked to be liberated. She wanted to know why nobody talks about Osama bin Laden anymore. And it's hard to tell a child why you love your country but fear your government.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi lives have been lost. Saddam Hussein is imprisoned at some airport that you and I will likely never see.
Osama bin Laden is God only knows where, but if you believe the conspiracy theorists, the Bush family knows where he is. Donald Trump remarked something to the effect that "he's a 6'6" Arab who has to have dialysis. He can't be that hard to find." Donald is right.
It's an election year and who knows who is going to vote. I don't see how anyone can stomach voting for W, but they're out there, and they're related to me. I try not to think about it. Jimmy Carter got pissed on by Zell Miller, who's not fit to tote Jimmy's laundry, and Zell's flown the coop and run off to the other side, but he won't get his foot out of the door so the Democrats can cloes it behind him. The whole damn thing has turned into a dick twirling contest and I can't stand to watch it.
Fathers are still killing their five-year-old sons, people are still living on the streets under the bridges and in doorways, the elderly are having to decide which of their medications they'll take this month.
Still, I have hope.
Tomorrow there will be tributes on the
radio, on television, in the newspapers. There will be billboards and
flags waving all over the place. Many people will go to their house of
worship some time to say a special prayer for peace, and many others will
take part in other activities to mark the day, to remember the dead, to
celebrate the living.
I don't want this day made a holiday. I don't want Hallmark to mark it
with warm fuzzies. I don't want it to become a day people look forward
to because it means a day off. I don't want it to become an exuse to spend
the day working in the yard or lying on the beach. I don't want it to
become one of the government-assigned Mondays.
Tomorrow I will do the things that I normally do, and I will celebrate
my ability to still do them. I will eschew random acts of kindness in
favor of deliberate ones. Just for tomorrow, I will stop thinking about
war and retribution. I will try to remember that it's true what Bruce
Springseen says: It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.
I hope that as you wend your way through the world tomorrow that you are
able to find some peace and comfort and be glad to be alive.
Wednesday, September 8, 2004, 3:35 peeyem
You know what I am tired of? I am tired of children cussing.
By children, I mean anyone who needs a note to get out of something at school.
By cussing, I mean in front of me, or other grownups.
It is simply not acceptable.
I am not in any way suggesting that I don't swear like a sailor myself, or that I didn't as a child. Pretty much everybody I knew did, but we didn't do it in front of grownups. We were happy to be cussing, they were happy to not be hearing it.
I am so tired of hearing children cussing that the next time I hear one do it, I am going to take him by his ear to his mama or daddy and have him repeat what he just said. Unless he can whip my ass, in which case I'm going to ask him if he eats with that filthy mouth.
And nobody better ever say the gold-plated four-letter F-word in front of my mama. Ever. Or we will have some talking to do.
It makes me crazy, I tell you, just crazy. It is not okay to tell me racist jokes, or sex jokes, or political jokes, or religious jokes if you don't know me well enough to know how I will take them. It is not okay to make fun of any minority in my presence if you don't know me well enough to know that I love somebody from most minorities.
Really, no one has any sense of "mixed company" anymore, or decorum in the presence of mixed company.
That is all.
Tuesday, September 7, 2004 2:48 peeyem
For my sister to pass along, especially to my nephews.
(from my friend Shannon)
A short history lesson on the privilege
of voting...
The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night,
they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's
blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing
sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head
and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They
hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed
and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was
dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards
grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and
kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the
warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach
a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket
Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food –
all of it colorless slop – was infested with worms. When one of
the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to
a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her stomach
until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was
smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because –
why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote
doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie
"Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth
and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion.
But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes
it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO
movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.
She was – with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me
as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women
think of the way I use – or don't use – my right to vote?
All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of
us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become
valuable to her "all over again."
HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD.
I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include
the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and
anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing,
but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a
little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade
a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently
institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice
Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor
admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and
vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous
women.
I put that first today because I think it's important. If you're not registered to vote, do it today. You can do it at the library, for crying out loud. If you are registered to vote, then go vote every single time you get the chance.
So. We sure are having some weather. I've been housesitting, so I didn't know whether my little house in the hood made it through or not, so I drove over there for lunch just to check it out. It's all still there, power and everything, but there's a limb down in the yard, and I don't think it came from one of my trees. The neighbors across the street have an entire little tree uprooted in their yard.
I don't actually have much to report. Fall tennis has cranked up, and I'm back in the darkroom on Thursday night, so that's good. This will mark the end of my excessive free time, so if you need me, leave a message and I'll catch you when I can.
Living
in the
Past?
2004
2003
2002
