Month: May 2017

Feed It All Your Woes

Through the fountain, Columbus Circle

I don’t know about anyone else, but my short stories always start with a sense. A glimpse, a scent, a phrase overheard, a taste. I used to imagine an eventual book of short stories, grouped by each of the senses. Usually while I’m walking, something will trigger the writing portion of my brain and burrow in. Often I try to ignore it, and over the coming days, weeks, months, I’ll know it’s growing, creating tunnels that connect into a story by the time I sit down to write.  This is not my “process” (could I sound any more pretentious?) for full length manuscripts. I am not a careful plotter who creates extensive notes, charts, and detailed outlines, but a full novel needs more than a whiff.

One of these bristle-worms-of-the-brain began creating a space for itself the other day as I walked down the wet subway stairs to wait for the dreaded 6 train. I’m letting it lie, don’t have an actual story for this story yet, but for whatever reason it’s brought up all kinds of old memories.

For me, old memories are pretty much synonymous with old music, the songs and albums I associate with different people and experiences, from jazz to blues to classic rock, from punk to show tunes to folk rock.   Anyway, I thought of an old friend I haven’t thought of in years. I can’t remember his full name, but I remember hours of poring over used albums in Academy Records and Bleecker Bobs.  He taught me about reggae beyond Bob Marley, and after work I would drag him to the (now mostly gone) hole in the wall folk rock bars of the west Village. We worked with autistic children and teens when autism was still considered a rare disorder, before the definition and diagnosis expanded to a spectrum, and drowning myself in music was the best way to not leave my heart smashed in a million pieces behind the head of a child trying to use his skull like a hammer.

Naturally this led me to youtube, listening to music I haven’t listened to in a long time, including the album below, which I’ve been listening to for the past three days.  I know I wore through at least two copies on vinyl and one on cassette, and while I can’t tell you how many years since I last listened, I still remember every word of every lyric. The entire album is beautiful, and some of it is quite dark, but when I was younger it left me hopeful and looking forward.  Now it’s got me looking back, time and opportunities lost. This was Joni Mitchell’s debut album (ancient as I am, it was already long released by the time I “discovered” it).  For all of her albums that I have owned and enjoyed, and despite the fact that when my birthday comes I associate it with her collaboration with Charles Mingus–their rap/scat of Happy Birthday, this is still my favorite.  Song to a Seagull.

25, 45, 65: Hut!

Sunrise, because who needs sleep?

The majority of those I know and those I follow on social media are rightly pleased with the appointment of a special counsel (and with the specific appointment of Robert Mueller) to investigate the possible (lol) collusion and coordination between 45’s camp and Russian officials.  This puts us on the road to possible impeachments, indictments, convictions.

There are also quite a few calling for the use of the 25th Amendment, which would be a way of removing 45 because he is literally unfit for office. I think this is the option that makes the most sense because, in my opinion, he is literally unfit and unable to comprehend the responsibilities, duties, and consequences of his words and actions. This doesn’t address the larger problems, which are all the things and people that put us here. As I said in my last post, nothing he has done or said is a surprise, he is who he’s always been. When this is all over, if there is even a pretense of democracy left, we will be here again, unless we address the underlying issues. Now. I’m just going to hit a few of the biggies, the most immediate concerns.

Fake news! This is a real issue. The FCC needs to stop worrying about who used the seven dirty words and instead get some regulation and oversight going over who can/cannot identify their TV/cable/newspapers/internet sites as news. If there aren’t fact checkers working overtime, they don’t issue corrections when they get it wrong, and they’re just spouting off whatever comes into their heads (yanno, like Mrs Fringe), they aren’t news and cannot call themselves news.

The GOP: Yup, every one of those fuckers has got to go. Not because I disagree with their tax plan, and not even because I think we should have nationalized health care, but because they knew. They all knew.  Each and every one of them knew he was unqualified, unstable, a proven liar, relied on unstable extremists as advisors, wore his many, many lawsuits like medals, viewed women as objects to be categorized and mauled, viewed immigrants as occasionally useful subhumans, admired dictators above democratic leaders, and strongly suspected Russian ties.  They supported him anyway.  They thought he’d make them and their buddies lots of money by relaxing and omitting those pesky regulations (correct), and likely they thought his inexperience and disinterest in the nuts and bolts would make him easily manipulable (big old incorrect).  These are not people who take their duties as elected representatives with any degree of responsibility, no true ethics.  Get rid of every last slimy one.  This includes the VP. He knew all of it. If he didn’t, he’s as incompetent as 45.  And yes, McCain too.  Moderate my ass. He opened the door to these loon extremists being taken seriously with Sarah Palin, and fell right in line behind 45 as eagerly as the so-called Freedom Caucus (formerly known as the Tea Party).

Us. By us I include those who supported and continue to support 45.  I can’t think of a single thing he stands for that I don’t despise, but. We are still the United States of America, fractured as we might be right now, so it is distinctly unhelpful to draw an invisible line with invisible ink and blame “those people.”  Sure, some of his supporters are unrecognizable to me as American citizens, with their hiding on compounds hugging their armories and preparing for Armageddon, but more of his supporters are regular Joes and Janes who hate. That hatred has festered and spread, cultured with ignorance and disinformation until there were enough to vote someone like 45 into the office of President of the United States. This didn’t just happen overnight–we’ve got that long history of hatred–that long history of bullshit pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and a more recent history where we’ve gone from admiring those who succeeded against the odds to glorifying the uneducated and vilifying those who do the work and get their actual degrees by studying. It happened when people said “W was a “C” student” like that was a good thing. Having Jefferson Beuregard Sessions, a man too racist to make it through to become a federal judge during the Reagan administration as our Attorney General didn’t happen overnight.  It happened with the acceptance of the privatization of the prison system increasing the flow of the school to prison pipeline for young men (and women) of color, it happened with the demonization and endorsement of bullshit studies re marijuana, it happened when Black Lives Matter was regarded as a nuisance instead of a necessity, it happened when we allowed racial profiling to flourish. It happened when we allowed police brutality, particularly against people of color, to continue unchecked without justice.

More us. It’s time to stop fantasizing about the only acceptable President being the Messiah. Barack Obama was an excellent President, but he was neither perfect nor magical.  This made his decisions untenable to many on both the left and the right. Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t that just a little bit completely batshit crazy?

We are in trouble. We are in trouble on the world stage, and we are in trouble within our own borders. The American social fabric isn’t merely torn, it’s ragged. I don’t believe a patch will hold, we have to rework these threads.

Who Knew?

Everything I Needed to Know about Russia I Learned from The Russian Tea Room, by 45

I’m seeing a lot of variations of the above title on social media. Who knew, I didn’t think it would be this bad, etc.

We knew. We all knew. Some of us knew and liked it–those people still do. Some of us knew and pretended the GOP was the same as it was 45 years ago, mumbling about checks and balances. Some of us knew and screamed it over and over again, and were told to take off our tin foil hats. Because it’s a surprise that a man without ethics or morals, who made his fortune by lying and cheating others, who made a campaign out of surrounding himself with others who don’t have ethics or morals, would govern without ethics, morals, concern for others or norms. Because it’s a surprise that a GOP that spent eight years blatantly obstructing a well liked and brilliant President would fall in line like dominoes behind a man without ethics or morals. They were very clear, they didn’t care about his character–character only matters when a democrat is in office.

I knew. I am not a historian, not a politician, not a world traveler, not a mover and shaker, not a young black man caught in the school to prison pipeline, and I knew.

I first said it here, when I didn’t think he had a chance, back in the innocence of June 2015. I was certain Jeb Bush would win the Republican nomination.  I didn’t address him again for a while, he wasn’t someone I ever took seriously, why start then?

So I didn’t blog about him again until here, February 2016.

And then here May 2016.

Here, June 2016.

Here June 2016, continuing to sound the alarm that we cannot and should not ignore our history.

Here, August 2016, where I look at human nature from the lens of 45 saying he could look Syrian children in the face and say they can’t come to this country.

Here, September 2016, right before the first debate.

Here, October 2016, where I was still holding out hope Hillary would win, but unable to imagine how I would continue to be friends with those who supported 45. Spoiler–I haven’t seen any of my 45 supporting friends since the election. 

Also October 2016, when we learned the extent of the depravity, aka pussy grabbing. Spoiler–all those GOP members who were shocked and appalled? Still supported him, still behind him today. 

And again October 2016.

Which leads us to November 2016, the day before election day.

The day after election day, my immediate thoughts and horror, all the implications.

I considered shuttering the blog after this, took a long hiatus and have been sporadic since, because I wake up every damned day feeling like I can’t breathe, let alone string words together.

Instead of skyscrapers reaching for the moon, every day takes us another level lower, with the GOP operating the elevator. Nothing is happening that we didn’t see coming, 45 and his supporters (elected and citizens) were very clear re what they were willing to tolerate, endorse, and applaud. The holier than thou crew on the left didn’t want to get out of their own way, and the blasé nothing-matters-or-changes-it’s-all-business-as-usual, checks and balances won’t let anything get out of hand, well. Here we are. I’m considering expanding my tin foil hat collection to include wall and window coverings.

So we can still have a lot to say with every new manufactured crisis, every disgraceful tweet, but we cannot say who knew. I’m an average gal living an average life. I knew, and so did everyone else. The question is not who knew, the question is who cared. Too few.

Which Circle of Hell Are We in Now?

New Yorkers 1, Howard Kanovitz, 1965

Well, here we are (the fourth circle, greed?). By now everyone knows the House of Representatives passed their version of healthcare, the AHCA–Trumpcare. It was easy enough for them to do, because several of them didn’t bother to read it, they didn’t wait for details and projections from the Congressional Budget Office, and nor were the details made available to the public. What we do know is that this bill takes us backwards in human rights. In addition to other atrocities, it opens the door for individual states to allow insurers to charge more for people with pre-existing conditions. Of course this doesn’t mean every state will, but we know the insurance companies have a long history of putting profit over people, which makes them quite comfy-cozy with the current GOP.

As it stands, it cuts nearly a trillion dollars of Medicaid funding. This will harm millions. The opening of the door to increased costs for those with pre-existing conditions will harm millions more. One of the possibilities that has people like myself (yanno, those of us without dangly bits) in an uproar is what we’ve already seen in the not-too-distant past.  Pregnant? Might become pregnant? Well, sure you can buy health insurance, buuuut we’re going to jack up the rates to make you decide between health insurance and food. Had postpartum depression?  Sorry, we’re going to charge you more now.

And the cherry on top, sexual assault. Many, including myself, have been talking, tweeting, blogging about this. Sexual assault as a pre-existing condition, which could allow insurance companies to deny you or kicking you over to a high risk pool–as in, unaffordable.

Politifact rated this claim as mostly false.  They’re correct. I still call bullshit. It’s true, we don’t know exactly what’s in the bill. It’s true, the bill doesn’t define what is/isn’t a pre-existing condition, the insurance companies do.  However, again, as we know from the not-distant past, before the ACA (Obamacare), people in America who had been treated or even tested for sexually transmitted infections were later denied insurance, or kicked to the high-risk pools.  We know that domestic violence and sexual assault rates are high. We know these are already underreported. We know women are still not treated as equal and autonomous human beings. We know we have someone sitting in the White House who bragged about sexual assault, who rates women according to their mammary glands. We know it’s mostly men who are drafting these bills and making these decisions. That matters. That there isn’t a significant number of people of color, representing all of the many communities and populations that comprise America matters.

So yes, it’s technically correct to say the AHCA isn’t labeling sexual assault a pre-existing condition resulting in unaffordable premiums, but it’s paving the way for this to become the case. Let’s be real here for a second. We don’t want to be inflammatory, don’t want to induce panic when it isn’t necessary, and it isn’t ever productive. But to say it’s out and out untrue is a whitewash, a normalization of what is unnecessarily going to harm us all.

I know it’s a long way to go before this bill becomes law. It goes to the Senate now, and supposedly the Senate plans to write their own version. That doesn’t set me at ease. I’ve heard many say the Senate won’t allow the cuts to Medicaid, particularly Medicaid expansion under the ACA, that they won’t allow the rollback on protections for pre-existing conditions. I hope that’s true, but I remember hearing our current president would never win, he wouldn’t get the backing of the more moderate, traditional members of the GOP, that religious groups wouldn’t support him. I also remember a time when politicians, even Republican ones, talked about protecting the most vulnerable among us, not speaking publicly about the disabled and ill as if they are gum to be scraped off the bottom of their shoes. Hell, I even remember a time when elected members of Congress wouldn’t brazenly admit to not reading a bill they were voting on.

So if my words are inflammatory forgive me, because I’m pretty sure a match has been struck shockingly close to my ovaries.

Zero to Hero: Or Not

I know, I know, I haven’t been around.  First I was writing, which felt shockingly excellent.  Then I got sick, the flu maybe, which sucked. Naturally after I got sick, Art Child got very sick, and the battery for my camera has died, which means no new photos, and before I can blink, weeks have gone by without even considering a post, and a whopping dose of the blues, which means  you didn’t want to hear from me anyway. Trust me.

The other day I was web surfing, and came upon what looks to be a reputable writer’s conference that will be here in the city this summer.  Sure I haven’t opened the Mess-In-Progress in weeks, I’m not quite sure how I’ll work out the money or the logistics but ooh!  I’m considering it.  Maybe it will be motivating. Inspiring. Humbling.  Humiliating. Yeah, maybe I’ll put that thought to the side for now.

Why am I blogging today? I’m not sure. Maybe because I feel like howling at the universe, but apartment life means no howling allowed. This is not a mom blog, or a special needs parenting blog.  I do talk about my kids a fair amount because they’re a huge part of my life, but as I’ve said many times, Mrs Fringe is my spot to be me–all of me; the good, the bad, and the wacky.

I know Jimmy Kimmel did a beautiful job talking about all of this the other day. Heartfelt, honest, a perfect blend of hope and honesty, and I truly thank him for using his platform to talk about families who don’t have millions tuning in to their words, have millions cheering them on and praying for them. Even I teared up as I watched. He had a layer I don’t have anymore, that newness, that shock of how-did-I-get-here?

In parenting, there are moments that make your heart stop. I like to think I’m pretty good in moments of crisis, it’s afterwards, when you have time to think and breathe, when I’ll feel it most.  But yeah, there are those moments where no matter that part of your brain is telling you to move, to speak, to take action, to take a breath…the lobe that’s in control in that one moment is frozen.  I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, it hasn’t always been a huge crisis that prompts this, it’s the neat and perfect dovetailing of implications, suddenly unavoidable.

“Mom, the dark’s been darker than usual.” My heart, my brain, my fucking everything stopped when I heard that. Of course I needed to hear it, I need to know this, but I don’t want to. For the past several months, we’ve been seeing more specialists and adding meds to deal with the issue that’s come up with Art Child’s eyes. I can and will do everything possible to preserve her vision. We’ve been doing everything possible, knowing the odds are ugly, to say the least.  And then I heard that statement.  And the next day she came home with a different edition of a book she’s been reading because “the letters are bigger.”

And then I went online and read about the latest round of “How the GOP is trying to kill the citizens of America and torture the most vulnerable.” Excellent.  Even better, the individual statements of Reps and 45 supporters saying things like people who live “good lives” and “do things the right way” should pay less than those with pre-existing conditions. As another med-needs-mom friend of mine put it, yeah, if only our fetuses hadn’t been drinking and whoring while in the womb, they wouldn’t have those pre-existing conditions. If you don’t have experience with this stuff, let me say sometimes I think it’s a freaking miracle that the majority of babies are born healthy and neuro-typical, because yes, there are that many things that can and too often do go wrong. Another pro-tip for you, everything is genetic. Everything. And most of us will, at some point, develop something considered a pre-existing condition, because it’s coded into our genes. Or we’ll have an accident that will have lasting repercussions. Or old age.

So on one side we’ve got the people who are totally cool with anyone with treatable health issues dying because they can’t afford health care. On the other side (and sometimes, oddly enough, there’s crossover) there are the people who know they and their family were really lucky with the genetic jackpot, and they say things like, “I don’t know how you do it. You’re a hero. Your child is a hero.” Now, I get the whole hero thing when you’re trying to explain to a very small child who’s ill. “You’re a superhero! You’re going to kick cancer’s butt! Slaying cystic fibrosis! Show those seizures who’s boss!”  And I know there are some medical needs parents who find it helpful to think of their children (maybe even themselves, but I haven’t heard that regularly) as heroic in the fight against *insert cause(s) here*.  Or they believe they/their children were chosen. I’m too cynical for this, and frankly, it neither makes me feel better nor gives me strength to make the next phone call, agree to the next med that includes “may cause death” in the list of side effects.

I’m a regular old gal. Really. If you walked past me on the street, well, you’d walk past. Normal. Regular. Average.  You might notice Art Child because she’s fabulous and beautiful, but that might be my bias talking.  You’d probably walk past her too. And my boys. Man boys, who do indeed have ten extra levels of strength, calm, and compassion because they grew up in a house with medical needs.  But you’d walk past them. And that’s all okay. I love a good cape, and so does the girl, but I feel no need to slap on a mask and gadget belt. I just don’t want to be a villain, either, for wanting the best possible chance for the best possible outcome for my child.