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That was the Twitter "trend" last night that piqued my interest. Except on Twitter it looked like this:
#ImSoSickOf
and so it began. First I tweeted [that's a word which means "typed in 140 characters or less" or sometimes "microblogged"] that:
#ImSoSickOf Twitter Trends.
Then I thought some more and tweeted a whole bunch more stuff. They all start off with #ImSoSickOf:
not fitting in.
people fighting on Twitter. And then picking others to group-block until they get banned. Not just the Christians doing it.
all of us fighting instead of finding some common ground to talk about. We can do better than this.
the U.N. trying to run the Internet. Agenda 21. Illegal immigrants. the Gun Wars. Let's enforce the laws we have b4 making more.
not being able to translate my talents into work that I love.
people who assume that they know me.
injustice. The women of the First Nation deserve to have the crimes committed against them fully investigated. #Rape is never ok.
watching people continue to promote abusive behavioral mod programs and send their kids or someone else's kids to them. #FAIL.
people justifying the evil that they do.
people demanding that I be grateful for the crumbs. I'm baking my own loaf of bread. Ain't no stopping me now.
professionals believing that they know what's best for me as if I don't. Look, if you don't want to help me, get outta my way.
people demanding that we all fit into nifty little political molds. I don't. I suspect most aware people don't. So go away.
having to deal with a society that is content to let their privacy be snatched away. Privacy is necessary for true security.
living in fear whenever I exercise my first amendment rights. The terrorists of 9/11 have won. Our rights [are] going #DownTheTubes.
religious people assuming that without any gods, morals and conscience do not exist.
people who judge my #AnonFamily. We are all humans trying to live on this planet without blowing each other up. I <3 b="" you="">#anon
.
winter. Waiting for spring so I can travel.
everyone calling each other names. Liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, etc. Stop it.
bullies, drama queens, snotty neighbors, snitches, informants, spies, and drones.
There was one more trend that I tweeted for:
#ThingsSarahPalinHasNeverDone offer to sleep with my dad who I am quite sure would say yes.
Then I went back to #ImSoSickOf:
Twitter asking me to import my contacts from my e-mail. That's a big fat NO @twitter. READ ME NOW? #JustSaying.
exclusionary tactics.
what the politicians are doing in their belief that we need protection from our selves.
trolls with no skillz.
calling tech support and finding out that I know more than they do. So like, I quit calling. And I don't even know enough yet.
people going to jail for civil disobedience getting more jail time than rapists and human traffickers and homocidists[sic]. #FAIL.
people who don't understand the first thing about #Anonymous bashing my #AnonFamily.
the woo-woo.
people who try to take over public space with their private sentiments.
people on all sides blocking each other. @twitter, how about NOT using how many times someone gets blocked as suspension?
the insanity.
Because #ImSoSickOf the politicians giving it to us, I support #Anonymous. Because #ImSoSickOf business as usual, I'm changing how I live.
these meaningless trends-- who is jennette and why should we love her, what is snl, oomf, turnup, eureka7, symbiotic titan???
the BS & lies that politicians on all sides tell us. I don't need platitudes. Anything worth having is worth working for.
people trying to dictate to me what I should believe, think, or how I should behave. Civil rights for all civils.
the hate.
I recorded all of this here as stuff I may write more about sometime. Or maybe not. Last night I also had a bit of a melt-down over a wi-fi problem that I wrestled with for an hour and a half. But I did get it fixed. And as a bonus, I found a security flaw in my system. Or rather, found a security flaw in my system that I actually recognized as being a security flaw. I fixed it.
sapphoq itching for a coffee
C.O.W.S.
Crazed Obligants Wanting Something
I've known people who expect others to do and do and do for them. In my experience, they are stuck in the emotional stance of a baby. Rightfully so, an infant is dependent upon others for care and nurturing. As the maturation process takes hold, that infant becomes a child, teen, adult who hopefully has moved beyond the "Love me! I am loved!" stage of identity. But this is not a perfect world. Some percentage of the time, human beings get stuck.
Viable adults have certain obligations. As Victor Emil Frankl said in his book Man's Search for Meaning, "Freedom is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half
of the truth. The positive aspect of freedom is responsibility." Without including responsibility as an integral function of freedom, freedom becomes a slogan without meaning.
In twelve step programs, the Second Step talks about a restoration to sanity. The version I prefer is "If I want something different, I gotta do something different." Saying it that way is an admission that I have to do something other than passively wait to be restored [usually by a deity of one's choice] or pretend that I am mentally getting myself ready to be restored [usually by said deity]. The father of self-esteem, Nathaniel Branden, tells us that doing more of what doesn't work just doesn't work. If I don't like the stuff I have-- whether it is material stuff or the way that I live my life-- then I have to choose to do something different or to try it another way.
Enter the crazed obligant from stage left. The obligant has binded to us and we have allowed this binding. In order for there to be a taker, there has to be a takee. And that takee has agreed on some level to be taken. The obligants in my life were like Jupiter when I first met them. Usually they come with a coffee pot, a homey and cozy kitchen, and the gift of gab. Everything works for the first two weeks. The honeymoon phase gets itself over with. The hooks drill inwards. Suddenly I have a project.
In one memorable instance lasting a year and a half before I caught on, I was invited over for coffee over a particular talk show host on television. Funny that. The schedule turned out to be always at the later half of any given month, several days a week. When she was running out of money. "Oh, I need cigarettes. Can you go to the drugstore up the street and get me some?" she whined. Like a fool, I did. Because Jupiter is jovial and I got sucked in by the gaiety. Quem Jupiter vult perdere, dementat primus.
Another instance did not involve coffee. I was working, where does not matter. I was routinely given new workers to train. The young man was eighteen and very short and slender. He looked like a boy and in many ways he was. He was from Imperial Beach and his mother found that she could not control him. He was drinking, gambling, and starting to hang out with people that scared her. She sent him to live with his uncle in the small town in the middle of nowhere that I lived in. Within ten minutes of meeting him, I knew two things. I knew he had a drinking problem and a gambling problem. He told me he did. He didn't use the word "problems" but it was obvious to me that he had them. He didn't realize how desolate our town was. He thought he was moving to a big city. He was bummed.
But who we are follows us. Very quickly, the young man found a card game and a bookie. And of course he found the bars. He became my project. He became everyone's project. All of us who worked there were invested in how much he drank or gambled on any given day. I wanted him to quit his drinking and gambling. I wanted him to find some health for himself. The workers who went out for a drink after work were saying things to him like, "You can come with us but you're only going to have one or two." Invariably, someone else would chime in with, "No, you're not going to have any." One day, he told me he had gambled away his entire paycheck. I was worried about him. But he was not mine to worry over.
I came to my senses over a period of three months. One morning, we were sitting in the cafeteria before our shift started. I said to him, "Young man, you have two hobbies. You drink and you gamble. You suck at both of them. I suggest you get new hobbies." Then I walked away. I cannot want something for someone more than they want it for themselves. He was no longer my project. Shortly after that, he came in still drunk from the night before and was throwing up all over the bathroom. I called the supervisor and demanded that she do something about it now. It was a Friday. She suspended him for the weekend.
He came back to work the following week. He told me he had to go to a series of counseling appointments at the local addiction treatment center. I nodded. He wasn't my project anymore. He didn't stick. He laughed off the information he was given by the professional helper. I had freed myself. There is no ending to the story of the young man. Eventually, he went off to find his fortune elsewhere.
There is an ending to the story of the cigarette smoking, coffee drinking, television watching woman whom I had allowed to leech off of me for a year and a half. I broke off contact. I'd heard that she had moved back in with her parents about an hour and a half away. Several years later out of the blue, I got a message on my voice mail. "It's my birthday," she started out. "Come and see me. We can hang out." I erased the message. Jupiter's path had moved on without me in tow.
I was brought up to be nice. My wise old aunt quietly watched me go through a series of hanger-on-ers over the years. Finally one day, she said to me, "sapphoq, it's nice to be nice. But sometimes you are too nice." That clicked.
As I meander along this incredible journey called life, I have an obligation to myself to remember the things I learned from my role as a takee. Everything works for the first two weeks. I cannot want something for someone more than they want it for themselves. It's nice to be nice but sometimes I am too nice. When Jupiter begins his descent, when the C.O.W.S. begin their braying, when the hooks begin seeking flesh to drill into, I am no longer waiting with a sign in flashing neon letters that say, "Here I am. Take me! Take me! Take me!"
sapphoq itching for a coffee, but careful now about how i get it
For the most part, I have been maintaining my weight with occasional lapses. There was something about the T.O.P.S. program that has been bothering me. What has been bothering me is the letter "S." That letter S stands for the word Sensibly. It is T.O.P.S. and K.O.P.S. Taking Off/Keeping Off Pounds Sensibly. Not T.O.P. Taking Off Pounds. Not K.O.P. Keeping Off Pounds. The word "Sensibly" has to count or it would not have been there.
When I go to a T.O.P.S. meeting, I do not expect to hear about how people starved themselves the day of the meeting and/or didn't drink any water that day. And I certainly don't expect to hear about how people have been skipping meals for three days before the meeting. This is not taking pounds off sensibly. This is not keeping off pounds sensibly. This is eating-disordered behavior.
Folks talk opening about that. What other eating-disordered actions are being taken and not talked about. Are there a few members who are sticking a finger down their throat and barfing before a meeting? How many members are taking large quantities of laxatives in an effort to shit the extra calories out? How many members are taking large quantities of diurectics in order to piss the extra calories out?
The silence is deafening. I'm willing to bet that there are members who elect any one or all of these things as a way to sacrifice themselves to their weight. Look people.. I cannot change the system. I've got too much other stuff on the plate. But I will tell you what. I'm not hanging where old behavior reigns supreme.
Now is the time for me to live this. To not engage in any sort of patterned starvation. To embrace who I am wholly and completely.
To make consistent healthy eating choices consistent with who I am and who I want to be.
sapphoq
"Love is my religion." Bob Marley.
Not really. I just like the song.
"Faith is the commitment of one's
consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational
proof. When a person rejects reason as his or her standard of judgment, only
one alternative standard remains to that person: his or her feelings. A
mystic is one who treats his or her feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is
the equation of feelings with knowledge."
~Nathaniel Branden
"I find the advocacy of “universal love” puzzling – if one takes words literally. Not everyone condemns sexual promiscuity, but I have never heard of anyone who hails it as an outstanding virtue. But spiritual promiscuity? Is that an outstanding virtue? Why? Is the spirit so much less important than the body?"
~Nathaniel Branden
Jeebus crackers don't taste good.
Rejection of science and medical practices based on sound science kills.
Reason Saves.
Belief in fables kills.
Rwandan genocide.
Clitoral maiming of young girls as an acceptable Muslim practice.
Some Mormons in Utah gave us W.W.A.S.P.S. facilities to which we can send our troubled teens to be tortured. [a nod to radical sapphoq there]
Life Support: Keeping the dieing alive long after they are dead.
Pedophile Priests.
"Corporations are People."
Many cultures have creation myths.
The death of Galileo.
Seeking the HERE rather than the "hereafter."
Mother Nature is a Real Muther [fecker].
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
Atheists are sexy.
Too late. I've already lost it.
Hello, I'm Mary. I'm pregnant. Joe Dunne did it.
Joe got drunk at my family picnic in Hebron. He was yelling things like, "Je did it! Je did it! Je blew his Holy Smoke up Mary's snatch and made her preggers! Je did it!" That pissed me off so badly. "You did it, Joe you wuss you. Be a man and face up to it." But he wouldn't. I knew Joe did it. Joe had put his hands on his hips then and declared loudly to my whole family, "It was Je. He talked with me last time I was in the parlour smoking some fine Lebanese hashish. Je told me that Mary'd be having his baby. And sure enough, she's preggers." I had had more than enough of this religious talk. I knew my baby was Joe's. I hauled off and popped him one before stalking off for home. What a b/tard. Even if Je did stuff like that, I don't think he would have picked me. I wasn't a virgin. I swore and cussed and was pissed off a lot. I had very little restraint of tongue and I fought too often with my fists. Back in those days, females who were polite and obedient and holy got ignored. And me, pissed off Mary, wasn't having that.
Paw made me marry Joe. "It's either him or Zeus the camel trader," Paw told me when he came home an hour later. "You can't be hanging around here single. And I won't have you signing up for Temple Alms. I don't care if it is Je's issue or not." Paw was old and dieing from untreated syphillis. He had missed Maw terribly after a Roman soldier shot her because she refused to bed him and his warrior assistant. Paw couldn't stand the thought of Maw's corpse being recycled into dog food for the Romans' war dogs. So he quietly buried her under his prize grapevines one night while the moon was wanderingly. The grapes came up real good that year. Poor Paw. He never was the same. He bedded any woman who would have him after he buried Maw. And now he had the syphillic dementia setting in.
I picked Joe. Joe was sort of a wuss but Zeus the camel trader always stank. He sometimes forgot to wipe with the proper hand. I would have had an easier life if I had shacked up with Zeus instead of Joe. Zeus had his shop and a whole bunch of camels. He had a nice little apartment over his shop and some citrus trees out back. But I just couldn't get past his smell.
I had a woman lover before Joe-- Alma. I really wanted to be with her but she had gone off and joined Cybele's Army. I could still see her in my mind's eye waving back at me as she rode off for Anatolia, long hair flowing into ripples at the waist of her embroidered traveling thobe. There'd been a huge earthquake somewhere in Anatolia, I forgot the name of the city. Alma was off to help. She'd written, telling me she reckoned she would stay with the sisters for awhile. We loved each other fiercely-- I still love her like that-- but being daughters of Hebron, we both understood duty. I couldn't have left Paw alone to fend for himself just then. I was the only living child. Two brothers died in the war. My younger sister was stillborn. So it was up to me to help my Paw. Maw had just been killed that week. So while Alma's life went forward into what I fancied to be many excellent adventures, I the dutiful daughter was stuck here in Hebron seething with rage at having to stay in this deadening one hump camel town for the unknown foreseeable future.
Joe had gotten into the habit of coming over for supper after evening prayers. One night Paw fell asleep early. Joe and I had gotten too cozy. Things progressed a bit farther than either one of us had planned. Joe pulled it out last minute but of course with my luck, here I was pregnant.
I was almost due by time Paw got around to having our wedding. It was alright as far as heterosexual weddings went. The local priest wasn't a learn-ed man. I was glad when he didn't drone on for too long. My cousin Lizzy was my best woman. She looked radiant with a cluster of little braids around her head and a long cottony thobe designed to hide her pregnancy. It had a beautiful qabbeh done up in fine red threads. My own thobe and qabbeh were festive but borrowed. I longed for my own but it was not to be, not even for my wedding. Joe took Zeus for his best man. Paw figured that way Zeus would gift us with a camel. Zeus gave us a donkey. "Times are tough," he grunted, waving his smelly hands around in the air. "His name is Dumas." I curtsied and said, "Thank you kindly Mister Zeus." But I really would have rather had a camel.
The trouble started at the reception. First Lizzie's water broke. The womenfolk rushed her off to the birthing tent. Then Joe and Zeus got drunk and fisticuffs broke out. Lizzie's husband Zekiel tried to break them apart. Zeus stomped on Zeke's instep and kicked his feet out from underneath, and then headbutted Joe. Joe smashed a wine bottle against the table and went for Zeus' throat with it. I never did find out who started it. But Joe killed Zeus. I knew that was a sheer accident. Joe was a wuss, like I told you. But Joe was drunk and angry that night. His rage improved his aim mightily.
Everyone in town was at the reception, even the guards. The town center was trashed and the guards were passed out near a little fig tree under whose canopy Zeus took his last shuddering breath. "You gonna have to leave town now," Paw said, shaking his head slowly. He clutched an old vessel of Maw's with an odd-smelling amber liquid swirling around like so many ill-fated stars. "You've been a good daughter to me. Now do me proud. I'll tell Joe to meet you by the barn. Go my daughter!" Paw kissed me and then turned away so as not to see where I was going. I heard him gulping down the putrid drink as I ran to the birthing tent. Lizzie had a boy. "His name is Jack," she whispered dreamily, "Tell Zekiel for me." I figured that Zeke would have to find out later from someone else.
It was nearing midnight when I met Joe by the family barn. We packed up our bowls and our cookpot, an axe, and some extra underwear and socks, a small pouch of herb. That was all we had between us. Joe saddled up Dumas. Dumas surprized me by allowing me to sit on him without much of a fuss. Donkeys round our parts were pretty thick-headed. My father had poisoned himself. Zeus was dead. And Joe was a wanted criminal. Or would be once the guards came to. If any of them remembered or were able to find a witness who did. We left without looking back.
Sun came up and I drowsily woke to the clopping sound of donkey hooves on cobblestone. Joe was praying loudly to Je. "Oh Je," he sang out loudly. "Thank you for blessing my Mary with your child." We were coming into Beth-el Ham. I had never been there myself. I knew it was where a large fruit and vegetable market was. I spied a caravan behind us. I was afraid that Joe would attract attention. There were plenty of whacked up stoner religious folk around these parts back then. Even so, Joe had killed a man. I would have preferred that he be quiet rather than call attention to himself. "Shut up, Joe!" I screamed at him. But Joe just continued louder in his singsong prayer. I tied the stupid blue scarf that Joe had given me for a wedding present around my ears. I detested the color blue. Still do.
We were nearing Beth-el Ham Market. Joe switched his prayer song into something worse. "She's having Je's baby," he sang with abandon. Oh did I mention that Joe was tone deaf? Well, he was and it showed. "Je's Holy Smoke came down from the sky and blew on Mary's Virginal canal. And now she's having Je's baby."
Dumas suddenly whirled around and kicked Joe in the nuts. Joe stood in the middle of the road clutching his bruised balls underneath his trousers. I laughed. I couldn't help it. My water broke. "Dammit!" I screamed. "Why now?" Dumas then cut away from the avenue up an abandoned goatherd path and past a withered fig tree. I could hear Joe yelling, "Wait you curs-ed varmint! I command you to wait!" Dumas continued his headstrong ascent along the faint dirt footpath. We swept past a sign that read "Weed Hi---ock." I held on to the donkey's neck for all that is unholy. I had never seen a donkey move that fast in my whole entire life. Labor pains swept over me, causing me to think about various ways to murder Joe. I kept up a stream of colorful curses as we kept a steady gallop up through a gate and past a bunch of animal skeletons, an old burnt up house on a rock foundation, and right into what remained of a stable with a bit of an artificial water pit to the right of it.
Dumas jerked to a stop in the back of what used to be a stable. I fell off into a pile of hay that was soft as a feather pillow. Dumas stepped outside almost daintily, drank some of the water and then began nibbling on tufts of hay that he was freeing with one hoof. I was sweating and screaming as my gut rocked with labor pains. I cursed Joe. I cursed Hebron. I cursed Je and I cursed my life. The baby was crowning just as Joe staggered through the door. He blinked.
"Boil some water, stupid," I yelled. "You want some tea?" Joe asked. Men are so stupid I thought. With one last ripping pain, the baby-- our baby-- shot right into the hay at my feet. Joe passed out in the doorway. Great. No mid-wife. No kinfolk. No man to speak of. Just me and a donkey and a newborn. Dumas kicked a pile of used hay over the prone Joe. Then he made his way over to me and delicately nudged the baby from near my feet up closer to my arm. Gingerly-- curse-- I bent over-- curse-- and manevered the wrinkled boy-- my son-- curse-- Joe's son-- curse curse-- to my waiting breast.
"You will be alright now for a bit, ma'am?" Dumas asked. Ouch! My son had been born with a full set of teeth as well as a full head of hair. He clamped onto my breast and wasn't going to let go for dear life.
I blinked. "I'm losing it. The donkey just spoke to me," I said out loud as I counted the baby's fingers and toes in order to not think about the pain he was causing the area around my nipple. "Yeah, I'm related to Balaam's donkey," Dumas said. I blinked again. Fang-- yes, I was going to name the baby Fang-- bit down again on my breast. Curse. Sucked in air. "You mean that wasn't a fable?" "No, Mary. It wasn't. Genetics you know. Like straight or curly hair. And a bit of an evolutionary detour." Well, at least I wouldn't have to locate a brain doctor. I yawned.
Joe's head appeared from under his hay mound. "A baby," he said. "Je's baby. Wow, it's really true." I made a fist with one hand. "Shut up, Joe." I groaned. "Je really did it with his Holy Smoke. A mira--" Whack. Two donkey hooves kicked Joe in the head and Joe was silent once more. "Thanks, Dumas." The donkey snickered. "Don't mention it, Mary. That's what friends are for." Joe was not heard from for several hours. Baby Fang and I drifted peacefully in and out of sleep, his teeth still clutching a boob. All was peaceful. I could rest.
A Shadow in the doorway woke me. The shadow drifted into three. One large man and two shorter ones. "This is our farm," the larger man's voice boomed. "Get out." "But she just had Je's baby," Joe whined. Pow. Pow. Pow. Three separate iron glints in the morning sun. Blood on the hay mound where Joe had been. An eerie silence. Whirling dervish of hooves. A scream. Dumas. "You. Get. Out," Dumas snorted each word. "Idiots." Dumas kept kicking until the three idiots bolted out the door and thundered down the path as if for their lives.
"They won't be bothering you again," Dumas stated. All I could do was nod. Joe was dead. I was alone with a newborn and a talking donkey. "You aren't going to go all starry-eyed on me, are you?" Dumas asked. "There is no Je you know. Only what is here and now." I wiped away a tear that had escaped from my eye unwittingly. "I know," I told him. "I had figured out that all of this divine spirit stuff was hokus a long time ago. Only I couldn't tell anyone-- not even Alma-- because I didn't want to get stoned to death--" "For heresy," Dumas finished. He was smart too. Probably smarter than my dead husband.
Fang woke up then with a ringing yowl, rooting for my breast. He clamped on. I looked around. There was a lot to do. Wood to cut. Poles to raise. A stable and a little house to rebuild. Land to work. I had no money. My dad had killed himself. My husband had been killed. The baby-- my baby-- needed looking after and raising. I was hungry. I had to get moving, figure things out. Maybe there was an outpost of Cybele's Army in Beth-el Ham. I'd have to go have a look. Later I would do that, I thought. Walk down into town and see.
