Viva La France!

Posted on May 8, 2017 by Pat Greene

Viva la France!

While not my favorite European country (Spain holds that honor) I have always loved France. And the French people have now justified my belief that, on the whole, they’re smarter than Americans. (Yes, I know, I’m being unpatriotic.)

So Emmanuel Macron won. Hurrah! Attempts to discredit his campaign by stealing and then publishing scores of documents from them failed.

My favorite part of the whole Macron/computer hacking is how smart the Macron campaign was. According to the Daily Beast, as reported by Daily Kos, * they saw the threat coming and took preventive action. They mixed false items in with the true; they compromised the operation of the bâtards who stole and then leaked their information. They seemed to have learned from the American debacle; they heeded signs that the Russians were seeking to destabilize and corrupt their elections; they took action. (Marine Le Pen getting money from Putin was a sure sign that he was in her corner.)

We can learn from the French. We can stop the meddling in our elections, by Russia and anyone else. I give the Russians this, they’re extremely aggressive and competent at cyber warfare.

I also suspect that even without the efforts of the Macron campaign, the French would have put less credence in the leaked documents than the Americans seem to have.  At any case, they were smart enough not to put a radical Islamophobe in the Presidency.

I would never move to France (can’t speak the language, for one thing; more importantly, I love the US too much), but I am sure glad it’s there. Good going, guys.

*”I’ve read the Daily Beast article, I’m just having trouble linking to it right now.

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Posted on May 5, 2017 by Pat Greene

Sometimes, I just need to cry. For those times when reading the front page of the Washington Post won’t cut it (news inspires more fear than grief), I have The Playlist. As of Monday, I have a new addition to the playlist, to go along with such songs as Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” and Kelly Clarkson’s cover of “It’s Quiet Uptown.”*

Lauren Duski, a Voice contestant, covered Billy Dean’s “Somewhere In My Broken Heart.” This ties with Jordan Smith’s “Somebody to Love” and Michelle Chamuel’s “I Knew You Were Trouble”**  as being my favorite Voice performance. What sets Duski’s  apart is the restraint she shows. Both Smith and Chamuel were singing songs that required them to go for broke — that screamed out to be sung over-the-top, and the performers (especially Smith) gleefully complied. On the other hand, Duski’s performance (especially her studio version), is for the most part quiet, almost delicate.

The one attribute of many Voice contestants that annoys the hell to of me is their tendency to be showy (look how long I can hold this note! look at all the runs I can do!) when the song doesn’t require it. The coaches sometimes encourage this behavior, or at least don’t reign it in. Duski seems to be bucking this trend.

I’m looking forward to see what she sings next week.

*Or the second half of Hamilton. That’s a given.
**Which is on my “Fuck You” playlist.

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Ohio.

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Pat Greene

May 4th has come to be referenced in popular culture as Star Wars Day. (“May the Fourth be with you.”) The day holds a deeper, darker, and more important significance, though.

On May 4th, 1970, twenty-nine members of the Ohio National Guard shot sixty-seven rounds in thirteen seconds into a crowd of unarmed protesters and bystanders, killing four and wounding nine.

Yes, there had been unrest. There was vandalism. There were reasons the Ohio National Guard was called out. There had been arson the night before, although it was determined that the arsonists were not part of the protest. (Much like some protests, bad actors will use legitimate expression of the right to assemble as a cover for property destruction and violence. See: Berkeley, Milo Yiannopolous.) Yet, still, when it came to protesters, why was it okay to shoot to kill?

The students who were wounded and killed were unarmed. The closest of those wounded was 71 feet from the Guardsmen; and the closest of those killed was 225 feet away. They didn’t pose a threat to the Guardsmen. In a sick irony, one of the students who was killed was a member of the campus ROTC. He and another student were not involved in the protests — they were simply walking to their next class.

The students who died were nineteen and twenty years old.

The tragedy struck a chord in a divided America. It helped solidify the opposition to the war in Vietnam. (The protests had been about the expansion of the war into Cambodia.) Still, fifty eight per cent of Americans thought the students were to blame.

Kent State still matters because there are those who think shooting unarmed protesters is acceptable. A county GOP secretary in Michigan stated on his Facebook, in response to the Berkeley protests that prevented Yiannopolous  from speaking, “Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery.” and “I’m thinking that another Kent State might be the only solution…They do it because they know there are no consequences yet.”

When he stepped down after his comments became public, he uttered no real apology: “Whenever you’re involved in an organization, you want to be an asset,” he said. “At the moment I’ve become a distraction, and that’s not helping anybody. I stepped aside so hopefully the people that are so angry will feel that they’ve accomplished what they set out to do, and maybe we can all get on with our lives.” He also said that he had simply “horribly worded” his posts, that he was really speaking out against the violence but not really advocating the police shoot protesters.

His original words belie his later statements. There is no way that they can be read on their face as anything other than a call for law enforcement to violently clamp down on protest. He’s not alone, I’m sure.

There are those who see any protest as intrinsically violent, no matter how peaceful it seems. These are the people who state that peaceful protest over the deaths of unarmed black men pose a threat to police. Who pass laws to restrict the Constitutional right of the people to assemble, or to petition their government for redress of grievances.

There will be another Kent State (or Jackson State, or University of Mexico) tragedy at some point. It’s just a matter of time.

In the meantime, let us honor the memories of those cut down too young:

Jeffrey Glenn Miller
Allison B. Krause
William Knox Schroeder
Sandra Lee Scheuer

May their souls rest in peace.

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“Subaru.”

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Pat Greene

On Facebook, someone pasted a video of a bison stampede in Yellowstone, with the caption asking people to describe the video in one word. My word?

“Subaru.”

Last summer, the entire family (including the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy, visiting from New York) went to Yellowstone. The geothermal pools and geysers were magnificent, but so was the wildlife. The bison in particular seemed to be everywhere: meadows, roads, strolling through picnic areas…

At one point in the road to the Grand Prismatic Pool (oh, my God it was gorgeous — except for me, the blue pool* in front of it was so beautiful it almost made me cry) we saw a herd of buffalo and pulled over to photograph it.

buffalo-yellowstone

Normally, I am the one urging caution. “No, guys, don’t go geocaching in that rural deserted agricultural field at midnight. I’ve seen those slasher flicks.” “Yes, I know it’s the Grapevine and you don’t have to use the gas at all — could you please slow down?”

But this time, I was out there shooting frame after frame (most of which were terrible — tremors make photography tricky). “Pat, you might want to get in the car.” “Pat, really…”

At this point, a huge male turned and headed across the road, looking straight at me. “Yeah, you might have a point,”I answered when he was about fifteen feet away, and hurriedly climbed back into the rental SUV. I guess the bison was satisfied with my retreat, because he turned and headed up the road until he hit the line of traffic coming the other direction, most of which had pulled over.

The Subaru at the head of the line hadn’t. The bison looked at the Subaru. The Subaru didn’t budge.  The bison apparently saw this as a challenge; he lowered his head and started pawing the ground.

At this point, the Subaru made a hasty retreat, pulling over as far as he could without falling over the shoulder. The bison, his authority recognized, headed on down the road, followed by several others, while the line of tourists in either direction got longer and longer.

All of this is why, now when I see pictures of bison, I think of Subarus.

*If you have U-Verse cable, you might see it: it occasionally pops up as one of their screensavers.

Posted in My life and times, Travel (real or imaginary) | Tagged | Leave a comment

The smell of hope.

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Pat Greene

I have been buying spices from Penzey’s for years. Originally, the Rocket Scientist would have layovers in Minneapolis when he had trips to D.C., and he always brought back spices Penzey’s and clothes from Lands’ End. Then a Penzey’s store opened in Menlo Park — I go there at least several times a year. I use Penzey’s cocoa whenever I can; other cocoas — even Ghiradelli, are second best. (Vahlrona’s better, but then Vahlrona is a special case.) When the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy left for New York, and when the Red-Headed Menace left for San Diego, we gave them spice sets from Penzey’s.  I had never particularly thought of them in political terms, at least until last year.

It started with an opinion piece in their quarterly newsletter. The newsletter, which came out in March, 2016 was a celebration of Pi Day*: recipes for pie, showcasing their apple pie spice blend, etc. The letter from the head of the company celebrated science, and spoke out about the needs for reliance on facts and critical thinking. The letter sent a shot across the bow of the ship of fools carrying climate-change deniers. You may have seen it: it was covered by various media, a lot of which ended up being linked to on Facebook. Whether or not you thought it was a good thing would be entirely dependent upon your political beliefs. Right-wingers called for boycotts; liberals called for people to buy Penzey’s in solidarity. Liberals with some familiarity with the company said “No! Buy them because they have such terrific products!”

Their political presence has continued. My favorite was earlier this year, when it was clear that the Russians had meddled in the election but the White House was doing whatever it could to derail the investigation, Penzey’s had an offer for a few days that if you purchased five dollars of their stuff, you would get a small jar of their Russian spice blend called, ahem, “Tsardust Memories.” (Only five dollars? I have been known to go in and buy fifteen dollars worth of crystallized ginger alone. Oh, my God, their crystallized ginger…. forget cooking with it (it is essential for the top of my key lime pie and for my star anise-pineapple cranberry sauce), eating it out of hand is delightful.) I needed cocoa so that worked for me. (There was such demand that they were out of the spice blend and had to give me a raincheck.)

After the January 21st Women’s March, Penzey’s offered to send anyone who participated a heart shaped pin with “kind” written across it. I got mine a few days ago, and it has taken up permanent residence on the front of my backpack. I am proud of having been part of that uprising of political will, and do not hesitate to show it.

When I opened the small box containing the pin, I was greeted with a rush of intoxicating odors. Most pronounced was the warm smell of sage, but I could detect other notes as well. Rosemary, maybe? Oregano?

I have been fighting despair lately. That smell was a reminder that others are in this battle as well. Encouragement comes from unlikely places in unforseen forms. That a little box could carry hope with it — more so even that the pin it contained.

People  say that smell carries memories. I certainly hope that is the case here.

*World’s geekiest holiday: celebrated on 3.14. I first learned about it when at some point my kids starting requesting — demanding — I make or get pies for them for middle school math class.

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Keeping despair at bay.

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Pat Greene

This is going to be one of those most cliched of blog posts: a post about how hard it is to blog right now.

My impassioned rant about Bernie Sanders notwithstanding, I struggle to write these days — not that that’s anything particularly new, ever since mid-2015 — and writing about politics (all I ever did, it seemed sometimes) I find extremely hard. I want to, it’s just…

I can’t summon the requisite emotional distance. The dispassionate consideration. The words.

I’m going to try to post more, and about politics, but looking at where we are at as a country breaks my heart. I have never felt such pain about anything political in my life — not even when Citizen’s United and Hobby Lobby came down.

These days, when I want to write about politics, I want to cry, not the least because my keyboard is one of my ways of taking a stand, and I feel that I need to keep speaking out here. I know that not may people read this, but if even a few do, and I make them think, or help them understand, or give them ammunition for their next Facebook fight, I will have done something.

It was easier earlier on, when Trump was first elected, and denial gave way to anger. Outrage was deeper then, more raw; now a sometimes overwhelming despair has set in. I know that we need to keep the resistance going, that continuing to fight is the only way we’ll win.

Because the other side wants us to fold. They want to weary us until our hearts are so broken — and our minds, and souls — that continuing to resist seems futile. Trump and his cronies in the Congress  are not sliding into their regressive agenda gradually; they are dumping all of it on us in one giant snowball of callous oppression and cruel indifference.

They know, either consciously or instinctively, that the loyal, patriotic*, opposition will find it difficult to impossible to cover everything. The budget suggestions they have floated over the past few weeks alone reflect dozens of horrible options — speaking out against each one seems daunting. Just objecting to the them as a whole seem inadequate, but how to decide what to fight for? Meals on Wheels? PBS? The National Park Service? The State Department? (THE STATE DEPARTMENT?? Really?)**

And they are aided and abetted by a section of the electorate that really does not have problem deporting Dreamers, even though those kids trusted America enough to register  with the government. It’s not as bad as the Philippines government using the names of drug users who registered in order to get help to compile lists of people to murder, but it’s horrible in its own right.

People who get offended at being called racists but who think that preventing Muslims from coming into the country is a good idea. Who resent being called misogynists but who really do not have a problem with a commander-in-chief  who does not even have the sense of shame to hide his view of women. Whatever you think of Bill Clinton, he was never caught on tape saying anything like the crap the Donald has said.

People who don’t see what the  fuss is all about that, until recently, a man with white supremacist ties sat on the National Security Council. Who are not concerned that the president’s son-in-law,  not nominated or confirmed by the Senate — in fact who could not be, given laws against nepotism that were passed following John F. Kennedy’s presidency — representing our country in informal talks with other countries, and doing work that he is not qualified for by either education or experience.

People who shrug at the thick billowing smoke surrounding Trump’s Russia connections, who screamed at the wisp of fog that was Clinton’s emails. Who, in fact, are so determined and obsessed about a defeated presidential candidate that they are willing to excuse anything short of murder on the part of the man who did win. (See misogyny, above.) Who resist the investigation into possible collusion of the Trump campaign with a foreign power (and not any foreign power, but one of our two greatest adversaries in the world), but who didn’t mind that there were eight Benghazi investigations, none of which showed deliberate wrongdoing on Clinton’s part.

I don’t know what to do about these people. If you confront them with facts, you are accused of spreading hate. They ignore the hate that the facts reflect. From all I’ve seen, in many cases, they spit on people who try to “reach out” and find common ground.† While I have not had arguments break out on my Facebook (probably because people know I won’t tolerate it), I have seen it elsewhere. (My son got into a … discussion … in his  Facebook which involved members of his family. It was polite, but just demonstrated the gulf that exists between people.)

I’ll suck it up and keep trying to write. If my friends can attend marches and write letters (I do, too) then I can write.

*I am reclaiming this word. I love my country enough to not want to see it destroyed. That makes me superbly patriotic.
**The State Departments cuts don’t concern me, they horrify me: I have a son who teaches English to kindergarteners in a village outside Seoul. I have nightmares about him being trapped there following an invasion from the North, or worse, killed. My deepest fear is not just that there will be a war, but that the decimated State department will be unable to help warn Americans to leave before it happens.
†I recognize this may entirely be due to the people on Facebook I hang with.

Posted in Blogging, Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Bernie Sanders: Self-Appointed Progressive Gatekeeper.

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Pat Greene

I really wish I could not write about Bernie Sanders. I would love for the self-aggrandizing not-a-Democrat to just crawl back up to Vermont. He’d do a lot less damage to the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement, that way.

His vision of “progressivism” is solely centered around “economic justice” — “economic justice” mainly for men, it would seem. As he did during the campaign, Sanders seems to dismiss reproductive rights as social issues, even though access to birth control and safe, legal abortion helps lift women out of poverty and keep them out. How else to explain his original shrugging dismissal of a Georgia candidate as “not progressive enough” while he embraced a legislator who has supported legislation that would require women to view ultrasounds before they get abortions? [Sanders has since released a statement saying how vital Jon Ossoff is in Georgia. Forgive my cynicism, but he only did this after he was hit with a fireball of criticism.]

Maybe if we convince Bernie that reproductive rights benefit men as well as women (men in families where they are barely making ends meet need their wives to have access to healthcare and abortion, as well) he might be sure to only support pro-choice candidates?  Nah. It still affects primarily women.

It’s only a social issue. Progressives really care about economic issues.

Sanders seems to think he is the sole arbiter of what properly “progressive” means, while tossing half of the population of the country — the world — under the bus. I don’t give a damn how pro-choice you proclaim yourself on your website, if you support candidates who place unreasonable and burdensome conditions on a woman’s right to choose, you have no right to call yourself a progressive, let alone lecture others how they aren’t progressive enough.

Of course, Bernie is only a career politician from a tiny state with no large cities. He is never going to have the same intrinsic understanding of many people’s lives that, say, Maxine Waters or Cory Booker has.

Add to this that the people he is lecturing have been members of the Democratic Party for decades, while he only deigned to join when he could use the party to run for president. The fact that he was using (in the worst sense of the word) the Democratic Party notwithstanding, he spent a lot of time on the campaign trail sneering at us. Quite the opportunist, our Bernie.

Hell, even now he says he’s not a Democrat. Well, then, he should just leave the party the hell alone, not be feted by certain segments as the second coming of RFK. He says the Republicans did not win the election, the Democrats lost it. He ignores the effect of the director of the FBI trashing Hillary Clinton only days before the election, and the interference by the Russians in our electoral process (possibly colluding with the Trump campaign), or even — or most especially — the role some of his more rabid followers played by voting for Trump or that other Russian stooge, Jill Stein.*

He especially ignores the damage he did to the Democratic Party, first by turning the emphasis from issues into character (even though he said he wasn’t going to do that), and secondly — and worse — by keeping hope alive for his supporters even when there was no chance — other than an outlandish mathematical one — of his winning the nomination. The fact that he (and they) counted on locking up most of the superdelegates after railing about how unfair they were early on simply adds a level of bitter hypocrisy.** “Let the people decide!” he said at the beginning. “We can win this if most of the superdelegates support me!” he said at the end. The people did decide — and they decided “Hillary” (or at least “Not Bernie”).

There have been senators and representatives, not to mention other politicians and elected officials, who have been members of the Democratic Party for ages, progressives toiling in the shadows, who don’t attract the often uncritical (sometimes fawning) press that he does. They’re the heroes, not him.

*I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the ridiculous Bernie supporters who claim either that 1) their vote for Trump or Stein didn’t make much difference or 2) Bernie would have won. Yes, it did, even in a blue state — how many of your friends did you talk to across the country about the election and on how many blogs did you rant in the comment section? No, he couldn’t have — if America had trouble electing a woman or a Democrat, they sure were not going to go for a Socialist with issues of personal morality in his past. The only reason the Republicans seemed to almost embrace him during the primary while attacking Clinton is that they wanted him to be the nominee, so they could stomp him like a grape come November. Of course, we wanted Trump for the same reason, but then again Bernie wasn’t colluding with the Russians. As far as Stein being a Russian stooge…. There is a picture of former National Intelligence Director Michael Flynn at a dinner with Vladimir Putin. Stein is seated at the same table.
**And, lest we forget, it was the sainted Bernie’s campaign that accessed Clinton campaign information without authorization. The DNC might have overreacted, but the Sanders campaign committed the original breach.

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Signs.

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Pat Greene

Today I went to the March for Science Silicon Valley in San Jose. I had a great time.

I had also gone to the Women’s March in January. The vibe there was fierce, and angry. Today it was determined and a bit goofy. I felt part of the crowd in January, but today… I was with my tribe. I am not a scientist, but many of my friends are scientists or engineers, and I firmly believe that science is one way we can find our way out of the morass we find ourself in.*

The signs were cleverer at this march. There were more puns, more obscure references.  And, as one woman I talked to observed, all the words were spelled correctly. I saw at least three people carrying whiteboards, and in one case, changing messages mid-march. I have never seen a whiteboard at a march before.

So, herewith, some of the best signs….

The legal: “U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8: Promote science!” (Actually the paragraph in question is really about establishing copyright and trademark laws, but I still like the sign.)

The epidemiological:
“Got Plague? Me neither. Thank a scientist.”
“Do you remember polio*? I don’t. Thanks, Science.” (*The best part of this sign, held by high-schoolers, was the footnote — a protest sign with a footnote, I love it — which gave the extremely lengthy scientific name for the polio virus.)
“You haven’t died of dysentery. You’re welcome, sincerely, Science.”

The Feminist:
“A woman’s place is in the lab!”
“I am Florence Nightingale — Jane Goodall — Sally Ride”
“Nevertheless, She Persisted (said by every woman scientist ever)”

The appeal to non-scientists:  “You need science to Tweet and play golf!”

The political:
“Frack Scott Pruitt!”
“Hey,  Ocean, destroy Mara-A-Lago first!”

The exasperated: “I have to defend SCIENCE?????”

The literary: “Without science, it’s just fiction”

And, of course, the Scientific:
“Truth ÷ 0 = Toxic Idiocy”
“Keep your [Ti][N][Y] hands off our data.” (That would be Titanium, Nitrogen, and Yttrium.)

Herewith my favorites:
“Protest Sine” (with a drawing of a sine wave.)
“It’s impossible to find a good quantum mechanic.”
“Don’t turn my students’ favorite dystopian novels into coming of age stories.”

And, best of all

“Archimedes had principles; Trump, not so much.”

*It didn’t hurt that the end point was an event put on by Silicon Valley Comic Con. There were enough port-a-potties, and food truck. The weather (cool, not cold, and dry) and the lack of mud helped too.

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Saleswoman of the day.

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Pat Greene

I went into Starbucks for a Strawberry Acai refresher, when my eye caught the picture of the “Unicorn Frappacino.” The young lady behind the register saw me staring at it in horrified fascination, and urged me to get it, saying “Look! Colors not found in nature!”

It actually was pretty good.

Unicorn

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Today’s political musings, in very bad free verse.

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Pat Greene

It isn’t as though it was ever easy.
The things in the rear-view mirror
always appeared larger — and clearer —
than any of us ever want to admit.
We’re human. Humans crave certainty.
We crave surety and simplicity, and not having to think too hard,
too badly.
The way a junkie craves meth. The way a drunk craves alcohol.
We carry that craving even though we recognize
that nothing is ever completely the way it seems,
that no one is all of a piece,
that seeking the easy way is bad for all of us.
I’m no different.
But, now,
we live in a world where the walls of the rabbit hole
close in in as they rush past our heads.
We fear the other:
other nations
other people
other genders
other races
other ….. Just other.
We look across the deepening gulf
and we can’t see well enough to
understand how we got here,
let alone how to bridge the abyss.
Someone (anyone?) needs to find the courage to jump.
No one seems interested enough to try.
God knows I’m not.
Even as I recognize that
my intransigence is a betrayal of my younger self
of whom I always thought I needed to be,
of beliefs that for so long mattered —
tolerance, understanding, generosity of spirit —
I’m done now.
All I can say is to hell with it.
To hell with THEM.
And I look across in the deepening gloom,
And see them saying the exact same thing.

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The Stories In the Wine, Part III.

Posted on April 10, 2017 by Pat Greene

See “Stories in the Wine,” and “Stories in the Wine, Part II.”

Jenna switched the channel yet again. CNN to MSNBC to the broadcast networks, cycling through them obsessively. The only one she skipped was Fox News, out of habit more than anything. Nothing changed: every station showed the exact same pictures of the smoking plane sitting just off the runway at Logan, with people wandering, looking dazed. Pictures of fire fighters. Pictures of cops.

The same statements from the same police chiefs, and fire chiefs, and all the other talking heads tasked to give no information to the public while appearing to calm the situation. No idea yet what caused the fire, no indications of terrorism. (There was a reason she was avoiding Fox News, Jenna realized: what was probably a electrical malfunction would be, according to the network, yet another ISIS attack — proof that Western civilization was in grave danger.)

She didn’t see Jeff in any of those pictures, as hard as she squinted. Wait! wasn’t that his favorite plaid shirt? No, it was worn by a man with curly red-hair, not Jeff’s blond buzz-cut.

She didn’t expect a call. They weren’t lovers, any more; they were barely friends. That was a very recent development — his decision to go to Boston to move in with Lauren had pretty much caused her to stop speaking to him. He was heading back now to arrange for all his stuff to be shipped.

Jeff’s abandonment of her was devastating. Not to mention that Lauren had been her best friend, and now was… what? It wasn’t Lauren’s fault Jeff decided he would be better off if he were not with her. She refused to buy into the “rivals” motif the novels seemed to put forth in situations like this.  And yet… she had lost her best friend. It hurt worse than losing Jeff.

Jenna went to her cupboard, because she desperately needed a drink. Not a cocktail — she didn’t have the mental wherewithal to make anything. She opened a bottle of wine labeled “Shipwreck Red.” It was appropriate in a gallows humor sort of way.

She remembered getting the wine with Jeff. A local winery had “bottle your own” days where you could bring your own bottle and buy decent cheap wine. They had ended up buying a case. Then they went and sat on the sand at the beach at San Gregorio, huddling in the little caves near the cliff’s edge, eating deli sandwiches and drinking wine, hiding the bottle every time the ranger came by, like silly teenagers. It was a wonderful day, and the wine wasn’t half bad either. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the cornflower sky and smell the salt tang of the seawater.

Jenna switched channels again. Whatever had come between them, she still needed to know that Jeff was alive and well in the world. She knew that it might be a long time before she heard anything. They usually waited to release the names of the dead and wounded until the families had been notified, a process that would take a while in Jeff’s case. His parents were both dead, and his brother Brad was God knows where. Jeff and Brad had had a spectacular fight after their father’s funeral, and after the estate had been settled they went their separate ways.

And so Jenna sat, drinking, waiting, waiting for the end to the suspense.

She poured another glass.

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Minor victories.

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Pat Greene

In my last post, I wrote about the tremors. I have brown spots down my shirt right now from trying to carry a half cup of coffee to my room. Not good.

In the past I have loved jewelry making. I had given it up because it was so difficult and frustrating. However, for Christmas I had asked for silver wire. I don’t know what insanity possessed me, but there it was, Christmas morning: 20 gauge, for clasps, 24 gauge for wirework, and even 28 gauge — a size I have never worked with, but which looks interesting.* There was even *gasp* a string of 10 mm round lapis beads.

I have the week off of school (after tanking one project — goddamn formatting issues), and had decided at least one day I would do wirework, at least a little. I was supposed to have a routine medical procedure this morning, but that was canceled, so I had time.

So… I made a bracelet set. Before, this would have taken me at most an hour for the bracelet and five to ten minutes for the earrings. (And at least a third of that time would be design and sizing.) So I had an idea of what it should take.

This took over two and a half hours. I stuck with it, though, even though I am now exhausted. I am thinking that continuing to make jewelry would be a good for of occupational therapy. At any rate, I accomplished something difficult.**

bracelet 2 (1)

For those interested in such things: materials are 20 and 24 gauge sterling silver wire; sterling findings  and 3 mm beads; 8 mm lapis; 8mm cloisonné; and 7mm freshwater pearls. The clasp is hand-made.

Go me.

*For those unfamiliar with wire, the higher the gauge, the thinner the wire.
**Taking the picture wasn’t easy, either: I took maybe ten before I got one that was at least partially in focus.

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A letter I really should send.

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Pat Greene

Dear Professor:

You may wonder why I stalked out of class today. It wasn’t for a doctor’s appointment – I had one, but not until later. Nor was it because my medicine was making me nauseated, like I told you might happen early in the quarter.

No, I left because you were being an ignorant, arrogant, and (although I generally hate this word) ableist ass.

I saw with dread where things were going when you started talking about the faculty member years before who the college kept in the classroom even though he had requested they retire him with disability, and who ended up assaulting a student. I could see by the way you were treating the situation as a joke – a joke in which my classmates were more than happy to join – that I would be faced with a difficult decision.

Then when you referred to him being “in and out of the booby hatch” and stated that people like that got 5150ed, I could feel the nerves on the back of my neck start to tighten, and every synapse of my brain screamed out for me to say something, anything to get you to stop.

And then, then… the thing that caused me to gather my things and leave.

“People like that are usually what we used to call ‘manic-depressives, but now we call bipolar.” (I could not help but notice the slight sneer when you said “bipolar.”) “They are on a drug called lithium, and they don’t like what the drug is doing to them, so they stop taking their medication and end up in the booby hatch.”

I left. I am too much a coward to do what I should have done, which was tell you off right then and there.

I am bipolar. I have never stopped taking my meds on purpose.

I know a lot of bipolar people, and I know no one who has voluntarily gone off their meds without being told to by their doctor.

I know such people exist – I hear about them almost whenever I tell someone I am bipolar for the first time, unless whomever I am talking to is bipolar themselves. It’s part of what I call “bipolar horror story syndrome,” but that’s a post for another day.

For over twenty years I have taken my meds faithfully, even though…

The lithium causes me to shake so badly I sometimes have to eat dinner with a spoon, because food will fall off a fork. I often have trouble carrying a cup of coffee from the counter to the table without leaving a trail of brown dots, even if I use two hands. My neat, almost calligraphic, penmanship has given way to a large (albeit still legible and not too ugly) scrawl, because writing any smaller is often difficult, sometimes impossible for me. I used to type 42 words a minute, but my rate with the tremors is half that. I have had perfect strangers notice the tremors and ask if I was okay.

And it’s not just lithium.

I have been on drugs that made me stupid. (In the bipolar community, Topamax is often referred to as “Dopamax.” And then there was Abilify…)

I have been on drugs that made me sleepy twenty hours a day.

I have been on a drug that made me paranoid that I would develop Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, so for the first month I was on it I Iooked with almost hysterical anxiety at every rash (and nearly ruined a trip to Italy). (This same drug, if you miss more than two days you have to stop and start titrating up again, 25 – 50 mg a week until you get to your therapeutic dose. I’m on 350 mg.)

I have been on drugs that made my body go numb if I was late taking a dose.

I have been on drugs that made not just my hands but my arms shake, to the point where driving was difficult.

I have been on drugs that made me into a ghost, robbing me of my personality until my eldest son who was home from college said “I want Mom back.”

I was, for a very short time, on a drug that took me from mild-moderate depression to being impulsively suicidal in under a week. (Those black box warnings that you should contact your doctor if you have changes in mood? Take them seriously.)

On Depakote, I couldn’t take acetaminophen. (No Vicodin, no matter how great the pain I was in.)

On Lithium, I can’t take ibuprofen. (This is a shame, because Ibuprofen is the most effect medicine for my fibromyalgia pain.)

On Geodon, I was told not to eat grapefruit, although I don’t really like grapefruit so it wasn’t a problem. (People on MOIAs can’t. eat a whole range of things – red wine and aged cheese among them – that would make me really unhappy.) I also had to take Geodon with at least 500, preferably 1000, calories worth of food. Or it wouldn’t work.

And I do not want to talk about all the weight I have gained over the years. I end up on a new drug, and gain weight (sometimes substantial), I go off the drug, and lose… half of what I gained.

And yet even then, even with taking my meds every single day, I have occasionally ended up in the “booby hatch.” Sometimes the drugs didn’t work, for a period or all together. Sometimes, before I learned how to handle it better, I traveled to Europe and back, not knowing that all the time zone changes can provoke mood episodes.  Sometimes I went through an illness (post-viral encephalitis with delirium) or hormonal changes (childbirth or menopause) which caused my brain to go haywire.

I have been through drug after drug. I will hit equilibrium, for be stable for years, and then something will happen and I end up having my regimen changed. Or the side effects of a medication get to be too great, and my doctor decides to try a new drug. (Pharmaceutical companies make a lot of money off of people like me.) I hate the tremors and the weight gain, but I’ll live with them; I can’t live with cognitive impairment or being turned into an emotional zombie.

There is also what I miss. My unmedicated world is intense, and dizzying, and gorgeous almost beyond measure. Art becomes visceral; beautiful sunsets become transcendent. Good food is not merely delicious, it’s nearly orgasmic. And sex is a religious experience.

I give all that up, and deal with all the awful side effects. I take the damn meds religiously. So do most people who suffer from bipolar disorder.

I handle all that … crap …. because I care about people. I care about my family, I care about my friends, I care about the responsibilities I owe to society. To my neighbors. To my world.

And even to you.

As the song says, I am what I am. I don’t want praise, I don’t want pity.

But would simple respect be too much to ask?

Posted in My life and times, Who I am | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Movie review: Beauty and the Beast (Spoiler free)

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Pat Greene

I saw movie Beauty and the Beast tonight, and some observations forthwith:

In the battle of the singing Emmas, it’s Watson 1, Stone 0.

And hey, Dan Stevens is pretty good, too!

When existing musicals add new songs (to get that coveted Best Original Song Oscar nomination) they usually toss it over the closing credits. (See Chicago, Hairspray.) Here, they added a new song in a place where a) it made sense and b) added to the storyline the way that good musical numbers do.

To the lady two seats over: I don’t care if you’ve “waited all your life to see this,” SHUT THE HELL UP. And that includes during the credits, too. Dan Stevens is a good singer, but Josh Groban is a great one.

Talking in a theater is an annoyance. Singing along over Emma Thompson is a sin. Singing over Audra McDonald should be a crime.

About that “gay Le Fou” issue… yeah, I can see why conservative Christians are up in arms. I’m not, but then I’m not a conservative Christian.

And even aside from the homosexuality issue (although I would argue that Le Fou appeared bisexual), Le Fou was more three-dimensional in this version. In every way. He wasn’t just a … cartoon figure. (Sorry about that.)

In short? I liked it better than the animated version. I liked the changes they made to several key characters, especially to Belle.

And it was nice to have a good movie to go to in March, the nadir of the cinema year.

 

Posted in Culture (popular and otherwise) | Tagged | Leave a comment

Gallimaufry.

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Pat Greene

Gallimaufry….   isn’t that the BEST word? That’s because I have the BEST words. I sometimes even use them. (I bet Donald Trump doesn’t know this word. Hell, I had to Google it.)

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It’s finally happened — I’ve been insistently propositioned by a man young enough to be my son. I have started playing trivia at a dive* (not a sports bar, not a gastropub, but an honest-to-God dive) near my house on Mondays night. Playing by myself (get your mind out of the gutter) I’ve never finished lower than fourth (out of usually eight teams with multiple players). Once I finished third, winning a small pitcher of beer, which, since I have to drive myself home, I’m never going to use.

This past Monday, a boy (27, tops) from the perpetual second-place finishers walked over to my table in between rounds and said “you should join  our team,” as though he were doing me a great favor. I replied, smiling but quite firm, “No.” “Really, you would be a great addition to our team.” (Oh, I just bet.) Once again, I demurred. Finally he said, “Well, I’m sure next week, you’ll join our team.” (Not bloody likely.) The next round was going to start so he sat down, pointing to his eyes and then to me in the sign for “I’ve got my eyes on you.” He was cute — at least before he opened his mouth and proved himself an entitled, self-absorbed ass — but I am a lone cat who walks by her lone self.**

And this was all before I won the “Sex” round.†

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I have learned (re-learned, really) the hard way that being late to class can have consequences. The one day I ended up late to one of my classes, my classmates had convinced the professor to replace the midterm with a project. Damn. I can ace midterms (even in relatively difficult classes, let alone easy ones‡ like this) with minimal studying; projects take time and effort.

Stupid college students.

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I have a fifteen page paper I should be writing. It’s the annoying type of paper, based on a book with many separate parts, and we are required to write about each part. I can’t bullshit my way through this one.  I have ten days to do it, which might seem like a lot, but I have a lot of other work (school and otherwise) in the meantime. Not to mention spending hours obsessively reading Facebook.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be doing that last one, and not just to so I can get my schoolwork done.

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And it’s not like I need Facebook for my political news anymore; I broke down and got a subscription to the Washington Post. That it was free to Amazon Prime members (for six months at least) might have had something to do with it. I’ll probably keep the subscription after the free period runs out. I enjoy being able to read pieces past the first week of  each month, which is how long it was taking me to exhaust my ten free articles.

I might have subscribed anyway, because Donald Trump hates them, and because I love their new motto, “Democracy dies in darkness.” Damn straight it does. Trump hates the “failed New York Times” even more, so I should get a subscription to that, too.

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I  wonder how many people who claim to be strict constructionists when it comes to the Second Amendment won’t be when it comes to the Emoluments clause, anymore than they are for the Fourth Amendment.

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I never thought I would feel nostalgic for Richard Nixon.

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The answer to “But Obama had the Russians to the White House dozens of times!” is “That’s because he was the effing President, that’s why. He was actually doing his job, and putting his professional responsibilities over personal feelings. Imagine that! He wasn’t putting himself in a position possibly to be blackmailed, or colluding to corrupt the American electoral process.”

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Two of the increasingly long list of  “things I need to write about”: the effect of the Trump Administration’s decisions on American tourism (it ain’t good), and an appreciation of the late Antonin Scalia. (No, really. For all the decisions I found absolutely appalling, there were others I treasured. Some of his Fourth Amendment opinions, and his dissent  (joined by Stevens!) in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, for example.) But I haven’t any of them, yet. See: Facebook, above.

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Sometimes I think we have fallen so far down the rabbit hole that the Red Queen is just waiting to lay an axe to our necks.

At  least I am already mad. I just need to get a top hat (cost: ten shillings and a sixpence) and I will be all set.

*The Not-So-Little Drummer Boy loves this place because of its actual authenticity (as opposed to “authenticity”). It’s the sort of place where, although they have decent drinks, food is limited to chips and hot dogs and microwaved pizza. You get young tech guys in there and older men for whom the word “grizzled” was coined. It’s a great place. I know the bartender’s name (it’s Mikey), and he knows to make the one Dark and Stormy I drink really strong. I’ve watched two out of the past three Super Bowls there.

**I do worry about any women who have to deal with this jerk on a daily basis. I looked up “arrogant sexist bastard” in the encyclopedia, and there he was. (And hey, Rudyard Kipling shoutout!)

†This is “Trivia for Adults”: there is a “Sex” round, and everybody swears a lot. To quote the emcee after I won last week’s “Sex” round, “Buy her a drink, or five, and maybe you’ll learn something.” Not likely; I won the round by deductive reasoning and educated guesswork. On the other hand, I did have a different guy hit on me three weeks ago. (I think I had come in second in the “Sex” round that game.) He was quite a bit older than me, not as cute or well-spoken as the young idiot, but a lot sweeter. And humbler. And he took no for an answer.

‡Ah, you ask, if it’s so easy why are you bothering taking it? Because it is a mandatory pre/co-requisite to the difficult course which was the one I really wanted to take, and through which I am sweating bullets.

Posted in My life and times, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment