The Norm of Evil

I told my neighbor once that I want to be Kathleen when I grow up. “Oh really!” He said, looking at me sideways. Though we love her, she has a reputation for being — mean. Kathleen’s old, 87, and lives two floors down from me. She never married and rides her bike everyday. I gave her the bike helmet my dad bought me fifteen years ago. I was too vain to wear it. She still uses it. She’s feisty, independent and has a foul-mouth. She’s pretty with a pixie cut, sharply-defined chin and clear eyes. Kathleen came from Ireland in the ‘50s and has a slight brogue. When I’m running to and from like most people, she’s ambling along the street with Molly Malone, the tiny dog she named after a prostitute. “Oh hurry, hurry, hurry! — It’ll be the death of you, dear!” She’ll screech after me, her way of expressing the slight she feels when “we youngins” don’t have time to shoot the shit with her.

Her voice sweeps up in cadence at the end of her biting observations. I found her “observations” at one time quaint and refreshing. “Ooohhh what a little cunt that one is!” She’d say referring to the old French woman Hélène who lived in this building. I sort of agreed with that observation, but later decided that Kathleen had too many “observations” about people and that perhaps I didn’t want to be like her. She was too damn mean.

On her way to church, she told me about the woman she took to emergency one night. “Oh, Sandee she’s ab-solutely looney tunes! I picked her up and she was dripping in jewels as if she were going to the ball – when we were just going to the fucking emergency room.” The woman happened to have just walked by. Kathleen more or less talked about her in front of her face. “That’s not nice, Kathleen,” I said.

Another time she said she hated the banality, “Have a nice day.” I told her that we could use it as a euphemism for “fuck off and die.” So then I’d see her while I was rushing in and out the way she hates and I’d say in passing “Have a nice daaay!”

Yesterday she had the sweetest demeanor. I hadn’t seen her in a while. I hugged her. I know she needs love. She just gets on my nerves with that negativity shit – to the point where I avoided her last summer. She said, “I don’t know why I’m so happy all the time now.” There was a trembling vulnerability about her. We talked. “I was even humming earlier – that’s not me — for God’s sake Sandee, I think I’m going senile!” She said. Before I finished laughing she asked if I had planned to freeze my eggs, switching the subject quickly the way old people do often because of the ticking clock. “I hate eggs,” I told her. “These eggs.” She pointed to her stomach. “Hell no. I hate kids – I mean I don’t hate kids, I just never thought I needed any,” I said. Perhaps she was advising me on the regrets of not seizing time.

As we departed, she told me that I was the second person who’d hugged her that day. Finally, she said she got a diagnosis from the doctor. She had dyscrasia, she explained. But she said she felt healthier than a horse. “I’m ill,” she said, however. She didn’t look the least bit. I told her to please call or come up anytime – she has my keys. “Get a second opinion,” I advised. She was so pretty, small and delicate, possibly the side-effect of the news. It was a definite departure from her norm of evil.

Day by Day

I believe the Bible is a collection of metaphors.  People just have this colorful way of speaking.  It’s how we communicate.  A lot of symbolism in religion is intuition.

It’s about energy.  Very scientific, really.  Call it what you want.  But I believe when people congregate in a place of worship we create energy that connects us to people.

A friend wanted to go to church, so I went with her yesterday.

However, I like distance from organized religion because ministers are just vehicles for the spirit, but they are flawed humans.

I love Jesus — the symbol Jesus.  He carries our sins because we’re weak – it’s the way we’re made.  That’s why spiritual leaders have spiritual leaders.  They need someone to advise them so they don’t form cults, and tell people God told them to have sex with them, or to drink Kool-Aid with cyanide in it.

I do need a spiritual leader, some authority.  I have to appreciate that the spiritual leader is human, to have compassion for that.

Religions and spiritual texts have exercises where at the end of the day you assess your behavior – it’s necessary to function in a healthy way.

There are people who take the message too literally, tainting the idea of religion.

There is no cosmic Santa Claus, as the minister of my family church has said. God’s not going to save me from disease, death, debt – maybe to an extent.  I don’t think it makes sense for me to think that I made it through something death-defying because God loves me.  I’m sure there are people involved in some of the myriad tragedies who believed and who were worthy of this “salvation”, but didn’t “make it”.  We’re so self-centered.  I do believe it’s okay to thank God that you did come through.

God is my higher consciousness.  When I’m aligned with it, I get the answers to problems, because I open my energy up by being willing.

My spirit life is about radiating positive energy within challenges I face with people day to day.  It’s also about facing death, my own death, the death of loved ones.

I think the way we look at death encourages gluttony, greed, and hatred.  We believe it’s so final, that we cling to temporal things, including other lives.  That energy is transformed and not final.  I don’t know what happens when we die, but I should be okay with it because it’s natural.  So why is death bad?

You see it on refrigerator magnets, but really, we only have today.  That’s where my joy and so-called blessings are – not in the future after I’ve obtained my goals.

My spiritual quest is about learning how to stay in the present and being alive where I am now.   This makes my life more manageable and I can start new each day.

The minister who preached at my family church was intellectual, but he would build up a fervor, after he captured you with reason.

Reason is what keeps me faithful, despite outward appearance.  I say vile things, and contemplate evil, but in the end my spirit strives for moderation.  Mostly I walk in a certain direction, despite what I say.  But sometimes I am mischievous.  Sometimes I don’t want anything to do with God.

I don’t want to preach.  Maybe I have here – fuck it.  This is just my experience.  I believe that the universe is vast, and that the possibilities are just as vast.  And there’s so much I don’t know.  Why shouldn’t I embrace the idea of God? There, I said it.

Synchronicity

At the bus stop, on my way to work, a woman came after I did, beginning a competition to board first.  She inched her way beside me, amongst others who were more or less orderly.  Generally people respect the ones who were there first.  Though aware that it was stupid, I couldn’t help myself and maneuvered between the people to stay in front of her, and she did the same, so we got to the steps of the bus shoulder to shoulder — like fucking idiots.

She dipped her Metro Card into the fare box first, winning the competition.  “You are so rude!”  I said, repeating, “You are SO rude!”   The woman, from Africa somewhere, wore a long head covering (a burka maybe) with pink and purple circles and a tunic with similarly colored circles.  She wore black pants and sandals beneath it.

Again I said, as I tend to focus and drive it home, “You are SO rude!”

She said in a melodic accent, “I don no why you doin’ chop chop!”

Oh I know why I was doin’ chop chop —  I was a fucking idiot with a toothache who had slept very little the night before.  If this woman had done this another day, I would have gladly stepped aside to let her on.  Today my spiritual energy was low.

I eventually worked it out, going easy on myself for behaving badly.  As an old man from Harlem said, generally, “If someone steps on my foot in the subway station, I apologize.”  It’s not that I’m a pussy, it’s because I understand that we’re paranoid, scared, defensive, and carry a lot of baggage, etc., and I’d like to be as helpful as possible.  But I know this shit will happen again because I’m not Saint Auntie Sandee.  But when things like this do happen, I wonder how I might do better next time.

Walking to the bus stop after work I thought about ‘chop chop’ lady.  The bus comes and guess who’s on it? — ‘chop chop’ lady!  She was smiling vaguely.  I had to smile too.

The bus got crowded.  A young couple got on.  The woman asked to sit in the inner seat next to mine.  “Sure,” I said, rising to let her in.  The man stood by the outer seat next to me and chatted with her.  Later, the person behind me got up.  The man sat in that seat.  I turned and said, “Let me switch,” so that he could sit next to the woman who got on with him.

“You’re a nice lady,” the woman said, and her male friend thanked me.  “Thanks again,” she said down the road when they got off the bus.  “Have a good evening,” I told them.

So.  I’m redeemed.  How nice if we could be like this all the time and not have ‘chop chop’ lady incidents?

I wondered if seeing ‘chop chop’ lady again meant that it was synchronicity, a sign that I’m supposed to be communicating something.  So I wrote this.  But this wasn’t the only interesting synchronous-ey thing that happened this week.

A few days ago on the way to work I thought, though I’m not influenced by mainstream ideas and think for myself, I’m not getting any validation from the tribe.  I don’t have any ‘certifications’ — so to speak — since I’ve rejected certain ‘customs’ and ‘rituals’.  I’m not trying to be hip, this is just the way it is, from when I was young.  Maybe I just have some kind of syndrome.  Anyway, I muse, while I think for myself, etc., I’m kind of ass out, because I still need to have some validation from my tribe, right?  So I get to work and read this companion pamphlet to an installation in the gallery where I work.  It talks about mainstream influence on thought patterns, group mentality, and how most people desire validation from each other in a society, etc.  And I think it basically criticized sheep mentality.

Synchronicity.  Holy shit.  Great.  Then I read this blog post yesterday, ABOUT synchronicity.  Wow.

Last week I wrote a post with some divergent ideas about society.  I wondered if this message from God and the universe means that it will be received better because of the coincidence of thinking about what it is to be different and having that thought validated by the pamphlet, and it all being in line with the different perceptions in the post I wrote about society.  What am I supposed to do with synchronous moments?  Are they the universe’s brass ring?

No mama, I don’t want to go to hell!

Does anyone know if I could have unwittingly made a pact with the devil by singing a snippet of a refrain in a death metal song produced by Satanists?  I just wondered.

Quite a few years back I bought albums by Deicide and Morbid Angel.  A few years later, I was influenced by what people said about vibrations and such, bad ones, so I got superstitious and threw them away.  And silly me I didn’t know they were Satanists.

On my Pandora radio station the few songs they play by Satanists I really like.  Without me knowing who the artists are at first — if I hear the song from another room, I’m thinking wow that song’s tight!  And it turns out to be devil worshippers.  I guess that’s the way the devil works — his shit is always tight.  For those who don’t know, he’s all about appearances and the corporeal.

I’m not a devil worshipper.  I happen to have an unconventional relationship with God–it’s personal.  I’m an observer of life and all its elements.  I like to face them.  When I was nine I wrote a story examining the mystery of death and God and Satan.  This is just me.

They had this monk in Italy who sang metal.  He was old as shit too.  Reminded me of me.

So I don’t like the devil.  I just hoped I didn’t make an unwitting pact because I sang to this Deicide song that has a very infectious chorus.  I’ll bet most people would have a hard time not singing this one.  The chorus sounds like little demons waving their hands to and fro in the air while singing.  It’s so cute.  I used to do my leg lifts to it before I threw it out.  But it comes on my Pandora from time to time.  I still sing the chorus though.  I guess I realize in the back of my mind that if I had made a pact with the devil, my life would be a hell of a lot better than this.  Doesn’t the devil give you everything you want?  Hahaha!

Bums

“Frank!” I screamed.  He was back at the benches by the historical house in his wheelchair with his entourage.  He’s been missing lately.  He slurred, “Hello my beauty,” on his way to smashed.  Once I saw him spoon with another male bum on the sidewalk.  Today I wanted to give him my change from Rite Aid crumpled in my hand, but it wouldn’t have been fair to the others.

I don’t care for the one with the dreads.  Once he stood by McDonald’s menacing people.  I glared at him, ready.  He backed off.  Days later he stood in the center of the sidewalk by the historical house, facing me.  He looked at me and took his dick out.  He let it hang for a second before taking a piss by the wall.

On my way to work he’s usually sleeping.  He surprised me with a mellifluous “Hello” one morning.  He was sitting up, looking at me with doe eyes, smiling.  I didn’t even know he could speak using regular words.  War’s over I suppose.

Frank shares food and liquor with him.  I give Frank food they give us from the café where I work.  Once he was passed out drunk.  I woke him to tell him I had food.  He nodded, grabbed the bag and said thank you.  I didn’t think it registered, but the next day, he said, “Thanks for the food my beauty.  That sandwich was delicious!”  He said he shared the food with his friends.  He went on about how good the sandwich was.

Some are dirty and sick-looking.  One was just a head in a wheelchair.  Well, he had no legs and barely a torso.  He’d perch in front of the subway stairs.  I gasped from shock when I saw him.

The one that held the Dunkin Donuts door open for people moved to the next block. He was a sanitary hazard, filthy but friendly.  He’s eyes are always red.  Generally he just says hi how you doing but once he said, “You know you my baby girl.”  I said, “Really?  Give me some money then.”

There’s a married couple.  I don’t like them.  They live on the bench by the park and in a busted car.  I’ll tell you about them another time because they deserve a whole post.

 

My hard copy version is on sale

The hardcopy version of my book is on sale through Amazon.   The link is on the side-bar.

I’m preoccupied with other things right now, but soon I’d like to do readings at these places:

Indian Café

Indian Road Café

The Blue Stocking Book Store

The Nuyorican Poet’s Café

and maybe some other places.

Processing the things that I’m preoccupied with is normal, so I’m not overwhelmed, I’m just moving more slowly, so that I can think clearly.  In yesterday’s post I mentioned being in possession of myself.  This means I can face what I am thinking and respect the way that I process things.  I have some trepidation, but it’s fine.  It will all die out as the days pass.  As long as I have love and the vast universe to guide my thoughts, it’s all good.

The Power of Christ Compels You!

Inspired by Sara and La La, I wanted to share hope, in my case about being older and in possession of myself.  But I’d rather talk about when I was possessed.

Yesterday I snarled at people if I didn’t like their looks or if they looked at me too long.  It wasn’t me.  It was Satan.  Just as I was about to post on the glory of goodness he took possession.  That’s how he rolls.  Satan battled God for the soul of The Sword-Chinned Bitch.

I insulted people’s looks OUT LOUD and giggled like a troll.  Oh, my!  What a big round head you have, hehehehehe!  How unfortunate, hehehehe!  Showing ass crack on a Saturday afternoon.  Splendiferous!  What a nasty view of cellulite you’ve just given me — tehehehe.  I enjoyed it ever so much.  I wanted that speeding motorcycle to explode into the wall.  I wished hard for it to happen. I grinned imagining the carnage. If I wasn’t snarling, I giggled at the evil things that I had said.  I tried to unsnarl my face but it didn’t work.  This isn’t my normal behavior; my head usually doesn’t spin 360 degrees.

To age is fine, but, there are hormonal side effects that kick in especially when you don’t get sleep.

In the Exorcist, priests throw holy water on the possessed girl and chant fervently “The power of Christ compels you!”  By the bye, I’ve done this to wild coworkers and it does calm them. I went home, took a bath in holy water and now I’m back to my old Sword-Chinned Bitchedy goodness — hallelujah!  The demon has left the building, and I’ve got some pretty damn good holy things to tell you!

My pissed off nine year old little brother gave me this name

Scroll back to 1973

Me:  Get outta here!

Little Brother:  I can stay in here!

Me:  Stu-pid!

Little Brother:  Fuck you!  Sword-Chin Bitch!

Fast forward to 1989, walking down 9^th Avenue, Manhattan.  I tell my boyfriend the tale. 

“I used to be skinny with a sharp chin.  So my brother — we had a fight.  He calls me a Sword-Chin Bitch.”

“Sword-Chin Bitch?!”  Boyfriend spits pipe out. Stops walking, bends over, holds belly.  Breathless with laughter, he wipes tears from eyes.

1991, hanging with my good friend B.  To break the monotony of post coital cigarette smoking I recount the story.

“And do you know what he called me?”

“Nah baby what he call you?”

“A Sword-Chin Bitch.”

“A sword-chin who!?  Yo that ma’fucker’s funny as hell.”

Laughter ensues for five minutes.

Years later, old as shit, I come up with the idea of marketing my homemade book.

Ah, lets see, my sister says I need a blog.  She says I need to get on that gaddam facebook, and I need a catch.

Got it — I’ll name my book Why Did You Try to Fuck Somebody You Hate, and Other Mean-Spirited Tales, Told by a Sword-Chin Bitch.  It’ll be like, like — Monty Python!

B. thought Sword-Chin Bitch was hilarious – my ex thought so too.  And I’d be giving my brother a shout out.

But I can’t say Sword-Chin – it ain’t grammatically correct.  Gotta hyphenate, make it Chinned.  I’m selling a book.  It gotta be right.

Responding to the prompt for a handle on Word Press, Sword-Chinned Bitch, no-brainer.

Months later, thwarted by my own guerilla marketing ploy with that long ass book title, I change it to Mean-Spirited Tales, but keep the Sword-Chinned Bitch handle, to the dismay of a few.

Dear Readers,

Now you see the origin of my name.  I’m the antithesis of a bitch and strive to be evolved when confronted by bitches.  My handle doesn’t mean that I endorse bitches, beeotches, or sons of bitches.  Some were put off by my Sword-Chinned Bitch head appearing in their posts.  I don’t know, should I follow her back?  She might be mean, you said.  But I assure you that I am kind, loving, and do not consider bitchiness an attribute.

God bless you.

Yours truly,

Sword-Chinned Bitch

it’s nice to share pictures in the blogosphere with frieeeeeeeeeennds…

This Luddite figured out how to scan pictures into her computer – watch out now!  Oh God what’s next?  Maybe I’ll use my stagnating twitter account.

Yes they are low quality images, but you don’t mind because you understand that I am handicapped when it comes to technology.  These pictures go back between 7 and 17 years ago.  The ones on the left are a montage that I sent with my manuscript a while back because I was too cheap to spend money on a head shot — no that’s a lie — I didn’t have any goddamned money!   It might have been a mistake to send them this.   I’m quite sure it’s why they didn’t publish my work.

At the top left is me as Roy Orbison at Niagara Falls – we had a kick-ass time!  I wore those clothes everyday.

The NY State ID will be renewed in two years.  By that time, I’ll have an old lady picture to replace it.  Shit, I thought I was old then.  Bahaha!  Fuck that!  I’ll be 50 in November and I’m damn proud to be a woman of a certain age.  Bahaha!

At the bottom left is a Polaroid taken by a man on 125^th Street in Harlem.  The motherfucker just started snapping pictures of me out of the blue.  I told him to hand them over as I didn’t want my head photo shopped onto a naked body.

Me Mummy took the picture of me at bottom right in the family graveyard in Cross roads Virginia.  I’m between Grandma Z and her sister Auntie Connie.  I’d like to get my filmmaker brother out there to do a zombie movie with me as the star zombie.  It’s creepy around those parts.

[Sing along now!] It’s fun to share pictures, share pictures, share pictures, it’s nice to share pictures in the blogosphere with frieeeeeeeeeeeeeennds…

So long!

My favorite parts of the movie The Devil’s Advocate

I thought I’d write about The Devil’s Advocate after watching it yesterday then changed my mind.  “Nobody’ll give a shit,” I thought.  But then Brigitte mentioned the movie in her post, which is a sign from God.  So, here are my highlights from the movie:

[sing along everyone]

Romans 16:19 says!
Romans 16:19 says!

Be excellent in what is good
Be innocent of e-veel
Be excellent in what is good
Be innocent of e-veel

[still singin’?]

And the God of Peace will soon crush Sa-tan
God will crush him underneath your feet!
And the God of Peace will soon crush Sa-tan
God will crush him underneath your feeeeeeet!

In this scene, the church folk sing this little ditty.  A pudgy black woman dolled up in her Sunday best, looks so adorable.  She’s singing, clapping moving side to side.  She wears a white bow in her hair.  She reminds me of a little girl telling the devil, “You’re gonna get it good!”

I always sing along when I watch this movie.  I like the God of peace will soon crush Satan part best – that’s when I shake my finger at the Devil.  For the next few days after watching, I sing the song, to myself, out loud, while walking up the hill to the bus on my way home from work, letting out the farts that I had to hold in all day.  Coworkers pass in their cars, “Sandee, want a ride up the hill?”  “No, that’s okay.  I’ve got to, decompress,” I say – hehehe.

This next part I like in the movie is the Devil’s speech which gets to me because it’s so darned true if you really think about it.  Tell me if you don’t feel the same way after watching it!  The devil says he’s a humanist.  How about that?  This scene makes me want to stand up in the pews and testify – tell it Devil!

This next scene is a girl on the witness stand talking about a game she’s played with her friends called Special Places.  “Is this game sexual in nature?”  The defense lawyer (played by Keanu Reeves) asks.  The young girl whimpers, “Yes.”

I’m like “What?!”  Special Places!  That sounds haawwwt.  With roiling hot adolescents?  This game never made it to my playground.  When we were adolescents we played True Dare Consequences Promise or Repeat.  Special Places gets to the point if you know what I mean.  How many special places do you have?  True Dare was all over the gaddam place.  We kept it focused though.  Everyone always chose Dare.  It was I dare you to tongue kiss this one, or I dare you to put your hand down that one’s pants – eeeevery once in a blue moon it might be I dare you to f-u-c-k somebody – I neee-ver ever did that.  But I heard Judy Head-Blesser did!

In this last part the Devil says that on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most depraved act of sexual theater known to man, he got it on with Mary Ann at about seven — whooooa!  But this is the Devil.  He should’ve been able to get up to ten — at least.