Call me Goofy

I’m a visionary type, idealistic.  I glaze over details in politics, and take in the gist of what’s going on.  I read historical books and essays to understand the back bone of the system.   After years of reading all the papers, The Financial Times, The New York Times, and papers from around the world, I gave up trying to remember minutiae, because I discovered that my mind processes things abstractly.   I tune into news reports and periodicals here and there but I don’t think it’s necessary to do so every day.  It becomes a bombardment.  News organizations are generating business for themselves and sometimes it’s all too obvious.  When there’s a crisis I tune in more regularly.  But I might have stopped paying attention because a lot of politics is a game that I just don’t compute because I don’t have any quile.

I see how someone might think that what I wrote yesterday about the market system was simplistic, idealistic and naïve.  Generally, the message I wanted to convey is that there’s a connection between injustices and the way that the market works, and that if you’re indignant because these injustices keep happening, maybe you should look more closely at that connection.

While I didn’t mean to say necessarily that we should be a tribal world community, I do think that there are some great opportunities to come up with a better global market system now that the world is smaller.

I don’t think there’s any wrong or right way to look at the world, because it’s really all just a process.  I just wanted to share ideas that people would think about.

I’m sure that environmentalists and naturalists might have considered that their ways for harvesting food and having community stem back to people in small tribes from around the world.  I’ve seen adages and proverbs from these tribes on walls of some of our institutions, such as the Museum of Natural History in New York City.  Wisdom from these societies is in our faces but we’re not getting it.

I cried after Hurricane Sandy thinking of climate change and what we’ve been complicit in doing to the environment, because it occurred to me that there were tribes and indigenous people who thought of the planet as a living thing to be respected.  I want people to realize that these people who have been dismissed as barbaric and primitive may have a lot to teach us.

I’d love for us to experience a heightened consciousness that helps us to see the connection that we all have to each other.  When you trample over some of us, or dismiss us as insignificant or as a drain, in the long run we’re only hurting ourselves.

I can understand that there’s a philosophy of living that is hedonistic or dog eat dog at the root.  Just don’t complain about crime, crooked politicians or wonder why you’re all depressed. There are other social maladies that can be attached to this type of an existence.  Call me goofy, but I think this is just the price we pay for ‘living well’ in a material world.

 

“Racism…Everywhere” continued…

I want to thank Meizac for writing that great post on The Outlier Collective entitled Texas and Racism…Everywhere.  I thought I would respond but it turned out to be a post-sized comment.  So I decided to write my own thoughts — somewhat — in that vein.

I’m very conscious as a black woman, so my response to some of the injustices that occur under our political and economic structure might seem detached – at times.  In a sense I’m thinking, “What do you expect?”  I never strived to become a prototype for this system, or an imitation white person.   My standard of beauty even differs, while I do appreciate beauty in all cultures.  My pride in my African roots and respect for the remnants of those African cultures gives me the strength to deny a victim mentality, because I know that the western slant on the world is not concrete.

I don’t wear my ideology on my sleeve but I’ve taken action, and have been outspoken and have participated in marches etc. to protest crimes committed against black people and against Africa.  But overall I don’t see how any of these ‘injustices’ will go away under a world economic system that demands cutthroat competition for resources and money.  It must have scapegoats — reprobates and ‘genetically inferior’ people, so that they can be cut out of the competition with ‘justification’.  It’s built into the system.  The system wouldn’t work without these ideas.  While a degree of xenophobia might be natural (part of the reason I rarely use the word racism – it’s become a canned phrase for the most part – but I do use it when it’s so fucking obvious), something we have inside us from ‘the old days’ so that we could protect ourselves against other tribes, it’s used in the United States and elsewhere to effect policy and propaganda.

It’s hilarious that western countries have trampled all over the natural institutions in Africa and elsewhere, then go back like superman to save the day, making these people look more helpless and pathetic than ever, while they were doing just fine before Europe ever got there.  This is where we can get rid of the notion of white people being more capable of ‘handling’ (‘handling’:  therein lies the problem) their environment.

I believe that there are other ways to view the world, ways that we could adopt from dismissed tribes in Africa and other areas that had been trampled by the machine.  Our view of our world and ideologies can be shifted.  Maybe with the merging of the world in cyber-space the mutual respect can be more easily accomplished.  I respect all cultures, but I mean, how advanced is this society really?  More than half of us are on antidepressants – why?  Shit! and there’s more, but that’s another post.

This system may be the best that we could do for now and it’s great that Meizac and other people help to build awareness of some of the outright hypocrisies that exist.  These are the seeds that some of our young people need to help us to build something better than this.  For now we’re all brainwashed, black people as well, which is understandable — striving to keep up with the dominant culture without seeing the truth.  But we’re all in the struggle together — haha!  — who the hell really knows what we’re doing here?  We can learn from each other and teach each other without having a victim mentality or a mentality of superiority.

Facebook Rejection

Years ago, I told a friend that I would never go on Facebook.  If I wasn’t already talking to the people, I didn’t need to be interacting with them on Facebook.  I said I’d only be interested in contacting people from elementary school and my old babysitter — people from before adolescence. These people represent pivotal parts of my early development memory data.  Things got too complicated after adolescence.

I wanted to contact Margarita Fong, Yu Ching Wong and Suk Soo from P.S. 152 – and no, I didn’t go to school in China Town – I tell you that Suk Soo was rough.  She didn’t speak English well, but mess with her you’d see — she’d take on an attack stance and yell in her heavily accented voice, “You talk!  You talk!”  You’d run right outta there!  I would also like to contact Nina from kindergarten, Mary Lou, Zaida, David, and my fourth grade teacher Mrs. DePierro with the rotten teeth – though she’s gotta be dead now.

It was necessary for me to get immersed in social media to “market” Mean-Spirited Tales.  So here I am on Facebook.  I sent a couple of these people from the days of yore Facebook friend requests.  I haven’t heard back.  Except for my old babysitter and Mrs. DePierro, perchance they don’t recall me, as they were just babes themselves back then, and I’ve heard some people say they don’t remember anything before the age of ten.

That’s hard for me to believe since I have very early memories, though not as early as that guy who says he remembers coming out of his mother’s vagina – haha!  I remember not being able to walk and I remember someone changing my diaper — they put Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder on my butt.  Just after learning to walk, I waddled to my brother’s crib and snatched the pacifier out of his mouth.  I guess the crib was low and I had a high reach.

It might just be that the folks I’ve reached out to haven’t been fortunate enough to recall such nascent gems.  So I’ll just chalk the rejection off to “lack-of-memory-cognizance syndrome” and be done with it.

 

The planet over the condominium

At 2AM when it’s quiet and the delineations fade and compartments die,  unconfined, metaphors become clearer when I look up at the stars and planets I can’t identify.

I asked a friend what he thought that big star might be that comes out over the condominiums across the street at night.  “Uranus,” he said — haha!

Heaven Hell God the Devil.  In a muted way I believe every bit of it.

In bed at night, I imagine the mechanism in our brains that we have for survival that inspires us to be so colorful — the intuition that warns us in hyperbolic ways that shouldn’t really be taken so goddamned literally.  Nevertheless, they mean something–all the symbols.

For now, I like not knowing what that star or planet over the condominium is.

Cheap free phone camera pictures of a really nice place

These are pictures of where I work.  I’m going to buy a camera.  These pictures would be much nicer.  I like taking pictures in spring with the overcast sky behind the pastels.  I’ve worked in both houses in the pictures.  I sit in that gazebo at lunch time.

I posted this before on here and on my Facebook page.  It’s the Weeping European Beech on a foggy day.  This wasn’t bad to take with a cheap free phone camera because of  the fog.

I had more pictures but they were double exposed and had green filmy covering on them.

Next I might post some pictures of my day trip to the Jumel Mansion where George Washington slept.  The picture of his bed came out real crummy but it’s rad that he slept in it.  If you weren’t entirely turned off by these, maybe you’ll enjoy looking at those.

I think I inadvertently ‘unfollowed’ all of the blogs I was following

Dear bloggers, I’ve got to correct this. I just wanted to receive notifications only in my reader but clicked the wrong dang thing. I’ll be back directly…

So sorry!

Yours terminally,

Sandee

 

The Seneca Scourge

Oh boy will you be in for a big surprise — you’re reading, reading and – blam!   The Seneca Scourge by Carrie Rubin would be a good movie.  There’s tension, action, intrigue – sheesh! — a little romance.  I haven’t read a lot of this genre, but it’s a nice mix of elements.  How’d she come up with this?

This is the second novel I’ve read by a medical doctor.  I bought the other one based on a review I read, and was disappointed, especially since I like the idea of novel-writing doctors, or doctors who write novels — writers who practice medicine – left, right brain merge — yay!  I couldn’t even finish the other book.  I think that other writer was trying too hard to be metaphysical and the shit just didn’t work.

But I love the concept of Carrie’s book, and the plot lured me in – I had to know where it was going.  And in the end, there’s room for a sequel, I think.  But, it’s up to Carrie.

Get The Money First (fiction)

“You didn’t know?  You supposed to take the money, then have sex with him.”

“Yeah w-well, I, I asked him.  After.”

“And so — wait a minute — he said he’d give you half and then you’d have to give him a notarized I.O.U.?  Girrrrl…”

“Noooo, he did not say he needed the I.O.U. to be notarized – just the plain I.O.U.  Would you leave me alone about this.  I messed up.  I know this.  I guess you should know all about the standards.  This was your career at one time, before you became, legitimate.”

“Yes, bitch, true.  At least could he fuck?”

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.  Too embarrassing.

Mod Party

You are cordially invited to my 1960s “Les Baxter” party.  Yeah I know, I know — just work with me here…

When I was a kid this is what adulthood looked like to me.  I’m prompted by Twinkly Sparkles’ post on what it was like to be a kid in the 1960s imagining what being a grown up was like. My mom is light with long hair that she wore in the style of a lot of the white women on TV back then.  My dad and mom went to parties of my dad’s artist friends and there would be pictures.

My party is slightly based on that but mostly based on media images and a few of the dirty magazines I “happened” on back then.

So guys put on your smoking jackets.  Cigars and pipes welcome!  We won’t protest in self-righteous health-awareness.  You’ll get none of that “Oh my God that stinks!” at my party.  Girls – yeah I said it – GIRLS – this is pre “women’s liberation” era – bring your cigarette holders and pink-filtered cigarettes, but no lighters.  The boys at the party will eagerly light your cigarettes on the terrace overlooking the Hudson.  Black women, wear your newly liberating afros, but you have to wear head bands, mini–skirts and Nancy Sinatra go-go boots.  Wear your grooviest bouffants and pale peach-colored lipsticks – re-apply after eating the fondue.

Martinis abound, the plain ones with no fruit, chocolate, peppermint or marshmallows– blech!  Drink up, smoke, swap wives and have an orgy in the blue room – no condoms.  Next week you’re all invited to the Cheetah Club on 53^rd and Broadway!

This wasn’t the sixties but I’m going to play it at my party:

We actually had this album at home:

Für wie lange bleiben Sie in Deutschland?

I love hearing people speak German.  One day I followed some German tourists.  I didn’t even know what they were saying.  I don’t speak German.  Perhaps they were saying, “Why is the schwarze lady following us?”  They looked like nice people.  They were tall.  The guttural precision and command of the language makes me…amorous. I’ve seen Run Lola Run a few times in German.

I asked German bloggers if they could translate “How long will you be in Germany?”  I want a character in my short story to say it.  These are different translations from the nice German bloggers:

“Für wie lange bleibst Du in Deutschland?”

“Für wie lange bleiben Sie in Deutschland?”

“Wie lange bleibst du in Deutschland?”

During my translation quest, I discovered a couple of friends speak the language.  One spoke German to me yesterday.  It made my eyes roll into the back of my head.  Another friend who speaks German said my pronunciation of the sentence was good and that maybe I was German in another life.  He’s an artist — sometimes they say things like that.

Rammstein had a popular song on the radio called Du Hast.  There’s a song on the cd called Spiel Mit Mir.  Sure it’s about incest between siblings, which I don’t believe in, unless you’re trying to keep your royal blood intact.  Those Germans – so severe, so kinky — ha!  The singer beefs up that “command” thing in this song for a dramatic, menacing effect.  It sounds like he’s hawking up phlegm, and I hate when people actually do that, but to punctuate a sentence — yes.  Here, check it out:

Und, I had sausage this morning, which is very German.