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Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
A Gift from Hil - 2014-12-28
There was A LOT of turkey. - 2014-12-04
Can we just jump to January please? - 2014-11-14
A (don't kick the) Bucket List - 2014-10-28

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11:36 a.m. - 2012-07-20
Who's a lucky one? I am.

Sigh...I've opened Word approximately 17 times and have gotten stalled before reaching the end of the first paragraph each time. Why? I don't know. The guys are behaving themselves. I've actually gone and done things so have stuff to talk about. Even the weather is cooperating with two days of very necessary rain and a welcome drop in temperature. Enough to have my windows open this morning.

The windows. I've hung even more pashminas over them so now my office has a raffish hippie crash pad/gypsy wagon/rather fashion-conscious homeless person's digs look to it. The new blinds haven't been very effective in keeping the heat out or the a/c in and the glare on my monitor was blinding, hence more pashminas. I could do something sane like purchase some of those light/noise blocking insulated curtains like the ones I got for the bedroom (which work really well btw, we call the master bedroom 'The Tomb') and make a homogeneous bank of neatly dressed windows down the long side and around the short one behind me and turn my office into something tidy and practical, but where's the fun in that? Between the scattershot mix of artwork, the collection of random and snarky magnets on the door, my unusual jewelry storage methods, the clutter on my altar, the overloaded bookcase, the eclectic throw pillows and crocheted afghans on the Couch of Infinite Time-Suck(TM), my messy desk and now the gaudily dressed windows my office has become the outward manifestation of the mind whose space this is. It always has been, but even Mick's commented on how lately he's really starting to understand what it's like living inside this cluttery, unruly, 'thinking 100 things at once', never quiet, always questioning, never peaceful disordered brain of mine. It's chaos, but it's also home.

I have no puffed notions, no pretensions that this 7'x10' random conglomeration of crap is akin to da Vinci's workshop, I know what a middling talent I am. 'Genius' is in the eye of the beholder and no matter what the geeks at Mensa and the folks who write the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler say if I were really so goddamn smart I'd have definitely made a more successful life for myself. (If nothing else I'd win one sometimes when playing Words with Friends.) My brain is a hoarder, that's all. All stuff, no discipline. And my creative space, the one place which is solely mine reflects that. It's a freaking mess.

Unfortunately on some level I have bought into the uniquely American moral obligation of making the most of what I got. Nevermind what kind of life I'd been born into, nevermind my gender or ethnicity, nevermind my own desires and what my soul might want- as a white (or white looking anyhow) person, genetically blessed with good looks, strong teeth, a bright mind and a politically/socially/religiously unencumbered psyche it's on me to make the most of it. I am duty-bound to be a financially endowed power monger with zero obligation to society as a whole. My job as an advantaged one is to get mine. Failure to do so is to mark myself as a loser. Whether from a duty to help the less fortunate and having compassion and empathy for their bad luck, or from my own poor self-esteem, or because my measure of 'success' is skewed from the accepted norm, it doesn't matter what my thinking is. To not use my wit and my smarts to fuck over those less gifted is a moral crime. At least according to the GOP and the Wall St types it is.

The battle lines which go a little less sharp between times have sprung back in all their hateful strength now that it's an election year. And weirdoes like me, the losers and the freaks, are set adrift in a caustic sea of seething loathing and fear.

At Christmastime I sometimes resent the bell ringers, not that I mind giving, it's the pushiness of the thing, but this doesn't stop me from giving Wolf some small folding green to drop in the kettle. ALL the kettles. EVERY kettle. My life is good, you know? I have so much. I have love and safety and a roof over my head and my wide girth is testament to my access to food. No one spent millions of dollars to engage in a smear campaign to stop me from marrying Mick. I was deemed 'old enough' to be worthy of a uterine ablation and I wasn't prevented by some sect's version of God's word from getting the health care procedure I needed to fix my outlaw bleeding and menstrual anemia. I've gotten every advantage my color, my age, and my birthplace could have afforded me.

"LA! What are you talking about? You were conceived in the backseat of a Nash Rambler at the Spring Valley Drive-In during the opening weekend in the spring of 1962. Your teenaged Catholic parents resented the shit out of their shotgun marriage and the subsequent life changes caused by your conception. Neither of them ever loved you. Your Da walked out on you and your mother and sister during your 7th birthday dinner! Your alcoholic mother spent the next 10 years beating you up and you have the concussions and dislocations and bruises to prove it. You spent three years suffering through nightly rapes and sodomies and your mother blamed you for it and married your abuser anyhow. Your lifetime of humiliations and guilt and accepting of blame went so deep you forfeited the chance at Harvard and possibly befriending the future President of the United States during your undergrad and law school years and it cost you having a real shot at a job at the White House. Then you hooked up with an autistic sadist who exacerbated your cruddy self-image and spent 25 years being abused, shit on and in a state of constant emotional and psychological deprivation. You have PTSD and a legacy of night terrors to this day. Your elder son hates you and cannot forgive you for your shitty parenting. You've lost function in half of your face, fried your credit score, and have almost nothing tangible to show for your 49 years. And yet you're fool enough to say you've had advantages?"

I have. And I do.

Despite the crap which came my way I still have more than many. And because of this awareness I cannot turn my back on those less fortunate. I can't sniff and scorn and loftily proclaim I owe them nothing. I can't hug to myself some mythical bullshit about National Debts and deficits and say the less advantaged and their lack of healthcare or food or education or safe clean housing isn't my problem.

If I did, how could I possibly get a good night's sleep?

If one third of the money spent on killing, our vengeful useless 'wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan, our social welfare payment to the already economically advantaged owners of the defense contractors and governmental tit suckers, if we spent one third as much on the truly needy and gave them/us the education, the healthcare, the access to information and help and good nutrition as we already give to the already wealthy and safe bazillionaires this country would be the gold standard for humanity. We could be the light leading the rest of the world toward a human race where each child born was wanted, fed, educated and would have the ability to give back toward a future with even more progress.

But we don't. We won't. We invent justifications for our selfishness. We use our excuses and hold them up as shields and hide behind them. Our religions. Our political doctrines. Our cowardly covers. Our reasons.

Are you truly that selfish? Are you really such a bean counter? Such a small bitter person as to ignore your own good fortune and miserly resent those who might not give back exactly and equally as much?

Are you honestly that small?


Shame on you. Shame on you if you are. ~LA

3 Wanna talk about it!

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