What does it all mean??

(1) I really like how Skechers and (2nd from left) Sloggers look aesthetically.

(2) I'm planning on working out a lot more.

(3) I have too much spare cash on-hand for random stuff.

(4) I'm stockpiling the shoes I'll be wearing in my old age.

---------------------------------------------------------------

(1) The black ones look stupid here in the photo, but I actually do like how Skechers look. RE the Sloggers: I have a greenish pair and a solid black pair. It's been raining in Austin for 2 solid months. I got sick of wearing the same 2 pairs of rain shoes all the time.
(2) Walking a mile a day. Yes, I would like to do this. (From NYC in 2007 until I got my car in Austin in 2016, I walked over 2 miles a day. Since 2016 and the car, I've put on 15 lbs. I look like shit.)
(3) Yeah. They were all on sale, but I could have just bought two instead of four.
(4) They are all super-comfortable. Yes, since they won't be getting much wear from me "working out," I'm sure they'll all last for decades and come in quite handy in my old age. 

February 11, 1963

Sylvia Plath killed herself in London in the early morning hours of February 11, 1963. A few miles away, and only a few hours later, the Beatles entered Abbey Road studios to record their very first album. Life goes on.

Happy Birthday to Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932)

Poppies in October (written 10/27/62)

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ---

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

Austin Water Mild Drama

Haven't been able to drink tap water in Austin for the past week because of rains and flooding and subsequent "silt alert." (Tap-water ban for the first time in Austin's history.) It's annoying but not crazy. Oh, unless you're one of the folks desperate to get to the supermarket to buy bottled water (see video).

I've been dutifully boiling two pots of water each day after returning from work, then filling up my several water bottles and refrigerating them to use the next day. I think I'll be OK. (Shocker: I accidentally used said bad water when I brushed my teeth, and then later drank a few swallows --- I lived!)

The worst part has been: One of the 3 pots that I own and that I use to boil water in, I also always use to make popcorn. Apparently, the oil has soaked into the pot lining. And my subsequent boiled water has a mildly nasty oil aftertaste. Sigh. I mildly miss my tap water. 

George Jones: The King Is Gone (1989)

Yabba-dabba-doo, the King is gone and so are you.

Blackface/Womanface

Ru Paul is not a woman. He likes to represent sometimes as a woman, but he has not undergone transgender surgery. Yet he constantly represents himself as a woman. Is The Orwellian Left now going to vilify him for falsely presenting himself as a woman? (As they vilify someone like Megyn Kelly for "daring" to say that dressing as a black person -- Diana Ross --  for Halloween is acceptable.)

Why not vilify Ru Paul according the The Left's Puritanical standards? According to The Left, no one should ever dare to pose as someone other than themselves. 

Do you see how ridiculous The Left is?

Megyn Kelly and Blackface

A bunch of completely fake-ass "conversation." What Megyn Kelly initially said was that dressing up like Diana Ross for Halloween was fine because there was nothing wrong with dressing up as cool people. But then it got turned into "Kelly supports blackface."

I'm a regular watcher of most of the "Real Housewives" Bravo shows, and Kelly was specifically talking about LuAnn De Lesseps dressing up as Diana Ross. As Kelly said originally: The point of Halloween is to dress up like someone you're not. I saw the Bravo show, and De Lesseps was dressed as Diana Ross as a tribute, not as mockery. 

That said: This Halloween, can no black person dress up as any white character in history? Every black person, and every PERSON, has to dress up as something SOLELY from their own heritage? What if someone wants to dress up as a ghoul or a witch? Is that "disrespectful" toward dead people or today's "Wiccan community"? Not the point of Halloween at all. I'm sick to death of the PC bullshit.

CHARLES MANSON 1988 Geraldo Interview in San Quentin

Love watching the ultimate sell-out Geraldo trying to be as "street" as Manson.

Charles Manson A&E Documentary (1995)

The First 4 George Jones Songs (recorded in 1954 at age 21)

George Jones "Walk Through This World With Me" (1967)

What do the Saudis have on the US?

Must be something.

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the US were committed by 19 men: 15 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the United Arab Emirates, 1 from Egypt, and 1 from Lebanon.

Post-9/11, the Bush Administration focused, bizarrely and blatantly incorrectly, on Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Informed "rumors" at the time were that the Bush family had deep business connections with the Saudis, thus official US failure to act against them:

9/12/03 from the American Prospect:

The links between the House of Bush and the House of Saud are deep, overlapping and notoriously opaque: the Saudi investment in the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm whose rainmakers include George Bush Senior; the Saudi bankrolling of Poppy's presidential library; the lucrative contracts the Saudis doled out to Halliburton when Dick Cheney was at the company's helm. The main law firm retained by the Saudis to defend them against the 9-11 families is Baker Botts -- as in James Baker, the Bush family consigliere. And, of course, there's oil, the black glue connecting all these dots.
In short, the Bushies have profited mightily from a relationship with a foreign government that can be indirectly, perhaps even directly, implicated in the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents and that has been the driving force behind a worldwide jihad.

Post-Bush:

From Wikipedia:

Saudi Arabia and the United States are strategic allies,^[233][234] and since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. has sold $110 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia.^[235][236] However, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States became strained and have witnessed major decline during the last years of the Obama administration.^[237] However, relations between the two nations have significantly improved under the presidency of Donald Trump, who has since forged close ties with many members of the Saudi royal family. .^{[238][239][240]} In the first decade of the 21st century the Saudi Arabia paid approximately $100 million to American firms to lobby the U.S. government.^[241] The relations with the U.S. became strained following 9/11.^[242] American politicians and media accused the Saudi government of supporting terrorism and tolerating a jihadist culture.^[243] Indeed, Osama bin Laden and fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia;^[244] in ISIL-occupied Raqqa, in mid-2014, all 12 judges were Saudi.^[245] According to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups... Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide."^[246] Former CIA director James Woolsey described it as "the soil in which Al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing."^[247] The Saudi government denies these claims or that it exports religious or cultural extremism.^[248] In April 2016, Saudi Arabia has threatened to sell off $750 billion in Treasury securities and other U.S. assets if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be sued over 9/11.^[233]

 
Today, post the blatantly gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, Trump is taking basically the same position as Obama did: We leave the Saudis alone because we sell them plenty of US-economy-helping weapons, they're countering Iran, and (per the last sentence in the above Wikipedia entry) the Saudis threaten to sell off US assets and hurt our economy if we "dare" to sanction them.

I'm pretty sure that the Bush Family was utterly corrupt in its personal business Saudi associations, which is why the US didn't condemn the country at the time despite its obvious connection to worldwide terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks.

Obama: Continued US economic/military deals with Saudi Arabia while giving public lip service (and lip service only) denouncing the country's terrorist ties.

Trump: I think Trump is taking the same Realpolitik stance as Obama --- sans the phony public lip service denouncing the country while simultaneously making deals with it.

We, as a country, are obviously deeply intertwined with the Saudis economically. And we obviously need them politically and militarily in the Middle East. Need their PUBLIC position, that is --- but why do we continue to ignore their ongoing behind-the-scenes monetary contribution to Radical Islamism in the area, which also spilled over into the 9/11 attack on our own country? I absolutely do not understand this. I comprehend the Bush Family's personal, reprehensible, corrupt relations with the Saudis (for their own benefit, and at the expense of the United States and the world). And I understand that Obama's hands were probably tied economically.

But WHAT IS TRUMP DOING sucking up to these assholes?

The Cold Hard Truth- George Jones (1999)

This is Sandra's fantasy song from her dream-male (Jim) in his old age that never got sung to her. (My own fantasy confession, also never received except vicariously, is Ted Hughes' "Birthday Letters.")

George Jones: A Good Year For The Roses (1970)

George Jones: He Stopped Loving Her Today (1980)

Flashback: December 2010

It was 85 degrees for a high in Austin yesterday; today, 45. For some reason, flashed me back to Christmas weather and Christmas, 2010. All pictures from my 400-sq-ft apartment over on Manor Rd. (then $545 per month, now renting for $856). I moved in June 18, 2010, at $545; when I moved out in February 2015, I was paying $700. In September 2015, it was listed on Craigslist for $925---glad to see the price has now shrunk to $856!

(1) I liked that place. Occasionally obnoxious neighbors, both next door/below and at the house that my apartment overlooked. But I liked the North Loop neighborhood, and the place, while small, was well-designed. I hardly felt stifled there. I felt like I'd chosen well for a "come-back" place to live.
(2) I liked my hair a lot better in 2010. And I remember those sneakers in the second picture; very proud of just having bought them because I hadn't bought new sneakers in over a decade and finally had a little bit of spare money from temping to splurge on something "decadent" like a pair of canvas sneakers.
(3) The Christmas-gift picture was, sadly, about as good as it got from family. (Gift cards, socks, and some minor things that I specifically asked for but could have bought myself.)
(4) Fridge contents look almost exactly the same! (Today, I find it kind of sad that I was so proud of having goods in my fridge and freezer that I took pictures. Probably, after living involuntarily with my mother for 3 months post my exodus from NYC, I was very proud to have my own stockpile of anything.)

Joan Crawford 1964 and 1965

I can't think of anyone more interesting, or interesting-looking, than Joan Crawford, at whatever age.

Tammy Wynette & George Jones: We Loved It Away (1974)

George Jones & Tammy Wynette: The Jet Set (1974)

George Jones: "I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair" (1992)

George Jones: I Always Get Lucky With You (1983)

George Jones: The Race Is On (1964)

Paul McCartney: No More Lonely Nights (1984)

I've had a recurring dream for years about missing a subway connection. I never had such a problem when I lived in NYC, with its actual subways, but in my dreams, I always get to a certain transit point between New York and New Jersey and then have great angst about how I'm going to transfer. Usually I'm standing on a platform and whatever incoming lines aren't running quite where they're supposed to, so I can't figure out which train to get on.

In the latest dream, early yesterday morning, I was standing in the left aisle of a train and a group of 3 men were seated to my right. Two seated, and a guy seated right behind them. My stop was coming up and a seated man that looked like Paul McCartney, but wearing glasses, asked me: "Would you rather be moral or enlightened?" 

I responded, trying to please, "Enlightened!" ("I want knowledge" I was thinking, but didn't say.) But then I felt like I'd given the wrong answer. Probably "morality" was the right answer because being enlightened meant being moral... The guy seated behind started giving his opinion, joking around, etc.

As the train/subway, came to my stop, the Paul McCartney-looking man gave me a folded-up piece of paper. I smiled and took it, but still didn't acknowledge internally that it was Paul McCartney.

I got off, and "Paul McCartney" got off behind me. I didn't look back. I walked on a bit by myself and finally opened the folded-up note: I can't remember what the first half of the handwritten note said, but at the end was an actual phone number to call, with "Ask for Ginger," his personal assistant. It was for real; Paul McCartney had really given me his phone number.

Kanye West: Famous (2016)

Kanye West Wing

Kanye West Wing: Brave enough to go against 97% of other blacks and, probably, 97% of his fellow artists and 97% of the US media. I admire him for thinking and speaking for himself, despite the potential great loss to himself. Some issues he raised (while being called crazy): His support for US standing up to globalism and bringing jobs home, his decrying blacks relying on welfare, his acknowledging that blacks kill more blacks than police do.

Witch trials in America, 1692 and 2018

Didn't we already have a play about that?

"Can you imagine if I had?" I love Trump.

Things to do on a Saturday

Despite my depression and sluggishness since September, this Saturday was actually productive for me:

(1) Woke up around 6am knowing the UT/OU game was on at 11am. Went back to sleep.
(2) Woke up again around 11am; turned to the game.
(3) Watched the game; in between, turned to C-SPAN to find out the latest about the Kavanaugh for Supreme Court vote.

After both the game and the vote were a given (both around 2:30pm), went back to sleep. Woke up again around 5:30pm, full of energy all of a sudden! Decided to do 3 weeks of laundry!

Did the laundry, which took 2 hours, then felt inspired to do other stuff, like open 2 months' worth of packages ordered from Amazon/eBay and hand-wash clothes/bras and then... get my classical music CDs in order.

I've got about 700 jazz-band/big-band/pop-music CDs (late '20s through today), all organized chronologically. But only about 45 classical music CDs --- about half inherited from my German aunt who died a decade ago (my mom brought home her CDs from Germany and gave them to me) and the other half ordered online when I felt inspired by reading about a particular composer.

I knew nothing about classical music as a kid (the only classical album in our house was Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"). So it took me a little bit when trying to organize: Since I had no clue about chronology, should I just do alphabetically by composer? No, dammit. I must learn their chronology, also!

Here's what I've got in my classical collection, chronologically, and whether they're from me or from my Tante Barbel:

Harpsichord "hits": 1500s - 1700s  (me)
Praetorius: 1571-1621  (me)
Vivaldi: 1678- 1741  (me and Tante Barbel)
Telemann: 1681-1767  (Tante Barbel)
Bach: 1685-1750  (Tante Barbel)
Handel: 1685-1759  (Tante Barbel)
Haydn: 1732-1809  (Tante Barbel)
Mozart: 1756-1791  (me and Tante Barbel)
Beethoven: 1770-1827  (me/Sylvia Plath said she liked the Late Quartets)
Schubert: 1797-1828  (Tante Barbel)
Johann Strauss Sr: 1804-1849  (Tante Barbel)
Johann Strauss Jr: 1825-1899  (Tante Barbel)
Mendelssohn: 1809-1847 (me and Tante Barbel)
Chopin: 1810-1849  (me/Anne Sexton said she liked)
Brahms: 1833-1897  (Tante Barbel)
Tchaikovsky: 1840-1893  (me and Tante Barbel)
Dvorak: 1841-1904  (me and Tante Barbel)
Debussy: 1862-1918  (me/Maud Allan dance inspiration)
Richard Strauss: 1864-1949  (Tante Barbel)
Glazunov: 1865-1936  (me)
Rachmaninov: 1873-1942  (me)
Stravinsky: 1882-1971 (me/The Rite of Spring seminal)

Getting all of this organized took hours (including cleaning the CD covers). And despite all of my ignorance, I still kept the Russians separate.

Vice President Mike Pence's China Speech at Hudson Institute (Oct. 2018)

Wow. I've never heard the issues laid out so calmly and absolutely clearly before. I love Trump, but he is, to be honest, a hot-dog. Pence is intellectually serious, and an absolute indicator of where the Trump admin is going to go. Bravo to an incredibly bold and brave administration.

Rallying a Country

I was impressed throughout, until the end. Once the stirring national anthem stopped and Putin left the stage, though, the stadium seemed to go completely quiet. (Had the enthusiasm been innate, seems like the crowd would have kept cheering.)

The anthem of imperial Russia (hymna carského Ruska)

The Weirdo Penny Family

In search of kitty companionship, I started leaving food out on my back patio in July for a scruffy-looking tiger-striped cat that I named "Penny," whom I'd spotted for months earlier traveling randomly around the apartment complex.

Since July, I've been leaving out a heaping container of Friskies "Surfin' and Turfin'" plus a water dish.

For a few weeks, I'd set out the food around 6pm, and "Penny" showed up by him/herself (I can't tell) around 7pm.

Then, one late night, I looked out through my back blinds and saw THREE cats lying on the back patio. Just lying around casually. Kind of weird to see THREE of them. Reminded me a creepy bit of a low-rent duplex that I lived in in the late '90s --- whenever I'd go out at night and leave the porch light on, I'd come home to HUNDREDS of lizards parked around the light. I've never seen such a thing before or since. Kind of the same with the three cats!

OK, so there was more than one "Penny"... In later weeks, I identified the three members of the Penny Family:

(1) The original Penny. Long and lean, gray tiger-striped with long tail and hair coming out of her ears and around her neck. Looked up pictures online and discovered that she was probably a "Turkish Angora."
(2) Same coloring as Penny I, same hair out of ears and neck. But fatter, shorter tail, and a more sassy face, with a prominent scar on its nose.
(3) Younger and sleeker than the above. Skinny and long, like Penny I, but healthier looking fur, with a browner tinge. This one isn't as afraid of me as the first two. For instance: If #3 is in the area when I bang the food dishes to clear them, this cat might run, but then stop and park itself only a few feet away and then immediately come back and eat the food I've set out. Whereas Pennys #1 and #2, if they see me, will be freaked out and not come back for hours.

One sweet thing that I witnessed once: Penny I and Penny II arrived at the food dish at the same time, and then took turns eating from the same dish! One taking a few bites, then backing off to let the other take a few bites. They got mildly irritated with each other, but still managed to take turns eating.

And now there's Number 4, whom I just spotted yesterday for the first time --- From the parking lot, I could see a big-ass primarily white cat sitting in my back-yard. Who was this? He looked decrepit! He was old but muscular-looking. Gray tiger face and tail, with a torn ear, and then the rest of the body was white. (An ugly color-combination I'd never seen before ---non-aesthetically pleasing! But apparently it's a real breed, a "Turkish Van."). It was after 6pm -- the right time for feeding -- and #4 was sitting there so patiently facing my door (with flies buzzing around him), so I went out and immediately filled the food/water dishes. #4 initially ran a few feet away and then sat and watched what I was doing---then immediately returned once the food was set out. At 7am the next morning (I don't feed the cats in the morning), the same cat was sitting placidly facing my door.

Tonight, when I set out the food at the usual time, scar-nosed Penny II showed up first. 45 minutes later, Penny I showed up. I kind of missed Number 4!

Penny Family:
Penny I: Skittish gray tiger Turkish Angora. Skinny with long tail.
Penny II (Henny Penny): Skittish gray tiger Turkish Angora. Fatter, with short tail and scar on nose.
L'il Penny: Sleeker and younger, with similar coloring to I and II, but with a brown tinge to coat. Not as afraid of people.
Papa Penny: Primarily white Turkish Van with exact tiger face and tail of Penny I and II. Muscular build, flies buzzing around its dirty fur, not as afraid of people.

Why I don't necessarily believe Christine Blasey Ford

Wow, what a mess.

First of all, I don't necessarily believe Christine Blasey Ford.

I know, I know---according to left-wing ideology, you're supposed to believe all women, regardless. Which is silly, because there are just as many crazy women as predatory men. (p.s. Left-wing goddess Hillary Clinton certainly didn't subscribe to the "believe all women" theory back when all of Bill Clinton's victims were coming forward in the '90s.)

In a November 2017 New York Times editorial, Bari Weiss made the point better than I:

...I believe that the “believe all women” vision of feminism unintentionally fetishizes women. Women are no longer human and flawed. They are Truth personified. They are above reproach.

I believe that it’s condescending to think that women and their claims can’t stand up to interrogation and can’t handle skepticism. I believe that facts serve feminists far better than faith. That due process is better than mob rule....

Thursday, I was able to watch almost all of the testimonies of both Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Having gone to sleep the night before on the couch with C-SPAN on, I, unfortunately for my attempt to be nonbiased, woke up to Ford's whiny, pseudo-little-girl "vocal fry"---that hideous cross between the old "Pat" character on SNL and Kourtney Kardashian that for some reason is being affected all over the place today by both women and some gay men. (Back in the '80s, Frank Zappa mocked a similar vocal phenomenon with his very popular "Valley Girl" song---so successful a parody that its shaming put an end to that style of speech for decades...until recent years.) So my initial reaction was: "Geez, the woman is MY AGE. Why is a grown, professional woman talking like that??"

Other shallow, surface reactions: She seemed nice enough, but also neurotic and scattered. I didn't, based purely on personality, DISbelieve her, but her demeanor also, on the other hand, didn't particularly inspire confidence.

As for the meat of her testimony: Ford says that 4 other boys and 2 other girls were at the party at which she was attacked. Of these 6 people, not ONE says that they remember anything about a gathering such as this one, much less about a sexual assault taking place. And one of the girls, "Leland," was someone who was, and still is, a friend of Ford's. Leland even sent Ford a text recently, apologizing for having no memory of the entire event and for not being able to corroborate her story.

The fact that NO ONE else alleged to have been there, including a female friend still close to Ford today, remembers such a party is the main reason that I don't necessarily believe Christine Blasey Ford.

Other, more minor reasons:

(1) Ford doesn't remember how she got to the party, or how she got home. (According to her written testimony, she didn't live close to the house in question, so she didn't simply walk there or walk home.) In my own experience, and from what I've read about how most others process traumatic experiences, the victim will usually play and re-play everything about the event over and over and over again in their mind, trying to figure the whole thing out, how it could have been avoided, etc.

(2) I have been actually raped (in 2000, at age 35), which doesn't apply to the Ford case. But my own experience with a high-school "assault" took place at a Friday night school Halloween Haunted House put on by our Drama department when I was 15, the same age as Ford was. I was in the Drama dept and part of the cast, dressed up like a ghoul that popped out of a coffin and chased people. A guy that I liked came through the haunted house (held on the stage/backstage of our school auditorium), along with 3 of his friends; they were drunk. I popped out of the coffin, made spooky noises and moved toward them... They all four then surrounded me and started roughly groping me---boobs and, yes, trying to stick their fingers into my vagina (which was hard to do through whatever "scary" costume I had on, but they tried. It did hurt a little.). It was a Haunted House, completely dark, lots of weird music/noises and people milling about. Nobody noticed what was happening to me, which went on for about 30 seconds. And then another group of kids came up behind my attackers, and the guys moved on down the line. Afterwards, I thought, "That was weird." And it was the first time that anyone had ever touched my vagina (albeit through my clothes), so, at 15, I also wondered, "Am I supposed to have sexual feelings about this?" (I didn't.)

I do equate what happened to me at the Haunted House with the same type of thing that happened to Ford: At a high-school party with alcohol, and with drunk guys, one guy (allegedly Kavanaugh) jumped on Ford and groped her through her clothes. The other guy in the room (allegedly Mark Judge) laughed and  jumped on top of both the male and female on the bed---which sounds like he thought the whole thing was a lark and a roughhouse rather than a truly scary experience for the woman --- allowing Ford to escape to the bathroom, after which the two guys stumbled back drunkenly down the stairs.

I didn't go to parties in high school (nerdy paper editor, not one of the "cool" kids --- which in my early '80s small-town high school were jocks and cheerleaders; there weren't any goths in small-town Texas yet), but I did go to many drunken parties in college. At which there were lots of gropings and flashings of body parts---dicks and boobs and asses galore. Sorry, but when young, drunken people get together, such things happen.

(3) When discussing her "trauma," Ford said that one symptom of her claustrophobia that allegedly resulted from the high-school event was a fear of airplanes and flying. Yet at the testimony on Thursday, it was revealed that she regularly (dozens of times) has flown to Hawaii, Polynesia, etc., for both research AND vacations. Ford also didn't remember that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had offered to fly out to interview her at her home, which they had.

(4) I looked up "Christine Blasey Ford" on Wikipedia. She graduated her private high school in 1984, got her BA in 1988 from UNC at Chapel Hill, Master's from Pepperdine in 1991, and doctorate from USC in 1996. In my personal experience and based on knowledge of other troubled people's lives, which of course doesn't apply to everyone but is a general indication, emotional trauma translates into trouble focusing and applying oneself to a goal. Ford, on the other hand, had no trouble proceeding on the exact expected timeline for her life as an academic. (Good for her! However, real trauma is real trauma and almost always slows you down.)

(5) Ford claims she has no political agenda. Yet she has attended at least 2 public protests against Trump since his election.

(6) Senate Judiciary member Diane Feinstein received information about Ford's accusation back in July. If it were so credible, why hold out with the info until the last minute? Politically suspicious.

As for Kavanaugh:

Surface reactions (dating back to when Trump first announced him as candidate for Justice): The guy seemed to me like, yes, an elite prep-school "goody-goody" asshole who partied a lot but tried to maintain a good face before family and community. Maybe he DID black out at a gathering in the summer of 1982 and jump on top of Christine Blasey Ford. But no one else at said gathering, including a current female friend of Ford's, remembers anything about such a party with Kavenaugh in attendance. In short, there's NO PROOF. You don't destroy a man's reputation based on someone's faulty, and perhaps overly heightened/exaggerated, recollections of "abuse."

[Full disclosure: I'm a bi female, and a feminist, with a Master's degree in English who works as a science editor for peer-reviewed publications. I voted for McCain in 2008 (Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primary), Obama in 2012, and Trump in 2016.]

Shaun Cassidy - Right Before Your Skies (1978)

The 1978 "Under Wraps" album by Shaun Cassidy wasn't particularly good overall, but... this song was VERY good! This and "Taxi Dancer" are classics, both written by Cassidy himself. To this day, I remember the lines "I hear the place was packed last night / But last night's group played basketball..." 40 years later (!), his voice is also lush and gorgeous.

Places please
The lights go down

A brand new town

And we all look the worse for wear

Hiding on the stairs

Holding on to all we know

Surrounded by the protocol

I hear the place was packed last night

But last night's group played basketball...

Taxi Dancer - Shaun Cassidy (1978)

From the 3rd album, "Under Wraps," by once huge pop-star Shaun Cassidy. (One of the first 5 albums that I bought as a young teen. I still have it. I still have all of my albums.)

Tonight while online doing something else, I started hearing this song in my head, and I remembered EVERY SINGLE LYRIC (before looking it up)---from 40 years ago! Shaun Cassidy wrote this himself.

Sheila was a girl misunderstood

A real operator

A legend in the neighborhood

She was bad

But Sheila had

Been taken by the wind

Dance all night

Hold me tight

Darlin'....

Peasant Worship

According to a seller on eBay, these icons were once worn by Russian peasants in the late 19th century through the early 20th century. Found recently via metal detector. I bought online for about $6 apiece, to ultimately hang by my Romanovs canonization photo.

As an aside: I've often wondered why people in jail turned to God --- obviously they had nothing else. Yet, perhaps there's a different take on that: Maybe once in jail, they were stripped down to nothing and then realized what actually mattered.

 

NIKA

Just ordered this Russian Orthodox sticker for my car: Christ/ Nika (victory).

In my mind, referencing the anti-Justinian revolt in AD 532, Theodora saving her husband's kingdom after the "Nika" riots.

My car is red, this sticker will barely show up. I'll know.

 

1898

Hekate

God Save the Tsar! (Russian natl' anthem 1833-1917)

Paul McCartney: Elegy for John Lennon (1982)

Elegy for Solo Cello (Andrei Golovin, 1988)

Tchaikovsky's Solemn March for Alexander III's Coronation (1883)

If you have speakers for your computer, turn the volume up for this grandeur!



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia

A $4.99 victory!

For a month now, the fact that I lost $4.99 (I thought unfairly) to an eBay buyer has been hanging over me. A mild malaise!

I sold a "like new" CD to the guy on eBay. With photos to prove it was "like new." But when he got it, he said the case was cracked and so didn't want it. I'd mailed the CD in a bubble mailer. I didn't know what else I could do. After I refused to refund his money, he opened a case on eBay, which found in his favor, with the proviso that he mail back the CD to me (on my dime).

I was annoyed, because I didn't think I'd done anything wrong. (I mailed the CD in a bubble mailer --- could I help it that the post office cracked it?) But I was resigned to the result; at least I could try to re-sell the CD once it was returned.

Well, the CD never arrived back to me.

I was nervous about contacting eBay, thought they'd either not respond or brush me off. They do have a number to call. The hold time really was under 3 minutes, as they'd advertised.

Once I got on the phone with an agent: (1) Turns out the buyer sent the CD back to the wrong address, one that I had 11 years ago! Why was that address the one that showed up for him to send it to? I've had multiple addresses since then, and I've bought and sold 100s of eBay items since then, all coming to a current updated eBay address. I asked the agent to tell me what address eBay had for me, and it was my current one.

So that was probably the main reason I got my money back --- the guy on the phone couldn't figure out why an 11-year-old address showed up for the buyer to send the CD back to, when my current address was everywhere else in the eBay system.

But another reason: I was allowed to argue my case about why, if I mailed the CD intact in a bubble-wrap envelope, and the CD arrived cracked, that I was the one to blame for that...

At any rate, after 3 weeks of worrying about it, and waiting for the non-arriving CD, the eBay guy on the phone made things right tonight --- I got my $4.99 credited back to my account.

I feel better.

June 1985 (20 years old)

Offering

Rain, the air in echoed flight
spewed open, with a gulf to cross
the fog slipped deep into the night
and then, with shallow sigh, was lost

The druids gathered trash-can fire
to lend a lie to faceless storm
then burned themselves in monkish ire
the angry price for keeping warm

And to the sky in crimson ash
a message wrought in smoking skin
the warning lit an acrid path
and deigned to let the spirits in

But horrendous sights remained our flaw
and lost branches never meant a thing
we laughed at pain reserved for awe
and cared not what the clouds might bring

Our minds in dread of solstice bright
(the holy artists crazed, we said)
in acts ingrained, we kissed goodnight
denied the rites above, then fled.

Very first poem ever written (March 1981, age 15)

(written for a sophomore high school English assignment)

Fortitude

Take a trip to nowhere
Now will you be free?
It seems very doubtful
They follow all, you see

Enter your mind's time warp
Do you think you are secure?
Do not depend much on it
The safety is the lure

A trance cannot gain anything
A revolution will
How else are we to win our peace
Than to rape and loot and kill?

Yes, our rebellion was successful
But still they are not free
For now, in their hypnosis
It is from us that they must flee.

An extra $500 lying around

My god, 10 years ago, what I would have given for an extra $500 "lying around."

Today, it's some cash I have hidden away in a poetry book. Specifically for a day when or if I need to pay movers.

Years ago, it would have felt like a very great something. Today, it doesn't feel like anything. (Seriously: If you're living in a one-room apartment, it's major; if you have a decent job, it doesn't mean anything.)

$100 birthday bill from my mother a couple of years ago.
$100 bet won from my brother upon Trump's election. (Ha!)
Rest, petty cash from various Chinese college students and scholars that I've edited papers for over the past few years.

A Star Is Born

 

Friday, I went to a co-worker's office (one that I don't trust at all, but that I had to discuss some work with). She and another co-worker were, as it turns out, discussing the new "Star Is Born" movie with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

I said that I probably would see it, even though I didn't particularly like Cooper or Gaga, just because I wanted to compare it to all of the other versions.

"What other versions?"

"Streisand in the '70s, Garland in the '50s, Janet Gaynor in the '30s."

"Oh yeah, I remember that one with Kris Kristofferson." [We all agreed that he wasn't that good of an actor or singer.]

The two people I was discussing with were in their 50s and 60s. So, yes, the '70s version with Streisand/Kristofferson was the only one that came out in their (and my) lifetime.

Yet, how are you not aware that other versions preceded the one that you're aware of? How have you not ever seen them in your 50 or 60 years of life?

p.s.
My favorite movie versions pre the new one: (1) 30s, (2) 70s, (3) 50s.
My favorite leading lady in the role: (1) 70s Streisand, (2) 30s Gaynor, (3) 50s Garland.
My favorite leading man in the role: (1) 30s Fredric March, (2) 70s Kristofferson, (3) 50s James Mason.

------------------------------------------------------------

p.s.s. A melancholy thought: I would love to have a 30s/50s/70s/10s "Star Is Born" viewing marathon at home with a partner and discuss during and after! (Melancholy because I don't know anyone who would also like to do this.)

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p.s.s.s. A poem I wrote in 1985, at age 20, remembering the 1937 version on late-night television that I'd seen as a teen:

Norman Dies (A Star Is Born)

he will die within these waves
sunset-stripped to cloudy gray
and he will float beyond the tide
sinking to a stillness
not barren, not in need of hue

outstretched, he feels the cells divide
as the waters merge
as his salt explodes
as the ether
parts to let him live

Doing What I Can

My hairdresser of a couple of years recently moved back home to Ohio to become a dental hygienist and recommended a replacement, whom I've been to twice now. (The first time, 6 weeks ago, was a bit marred by the fact that my car wouldn't start -- battery -- and I had to take the bus, thus arriving 20 minutes late; today I made sure to arrive early to prove I wasn't a jerk!)

After two visits, the new hairdresser seems to be a decent one, perhaps a little better than the last. (The former would do two good haircuts in a row, then two very mediocre ones---it got so random that by the end of her "tenure," I'd see her once, then go to a totally different salon [also mediocre], then back to her... never totally satisfied.)

One thing I was struck by today was how utterly nice, and how utterly dumb, the new hairdresser is. Super-sweet and beautiful (she and a couple of the front-counter girls are extraordinarily beautiful, enough to make you stare and almost wish you were a 20-something amateur photographer, willing to falsely promise them stardom or at least a photo on the dude's blog), and super-conversational, with the ability to put the customer totally at ease, which is a fantastic quality for a hairdresser. But here's the thing: She would bring up a topic, and I would respond, and she would completely seem to be following, but then later indicate that she didn't really understand what was said...

Fer instance: She's in a book club along with fellow hairdressers (the same book club that the former hairdresser was in). I asked what current book her group is reading, but she couldn't remember the author's name or the exact title of the book. She said she found it hard to follow books, and I wondered if it was because younger people today (she's early 20s) had shorter attention spans because they grew up with the Internet, which encourages people to skip from thing to thing rather than focusing on one topic for a longer time. Once she got in the practice of reading, she'd get better at it.

She agreed, and added that her mother (probably about my age) was a big reader and would get in trouble for sneaking books into bed --- reading too late into the night. Me, too, I told her, and then also shared that I used to sneak listening to "alternative music" after hours in the early '80s in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, when FM radio stations played only Top 40 or else "album rock" --- except for one late-night Sunday show that played then-up-and-coming bands like U2 and The Clash and REM from midnight until 2am.

"Oh, U2, I've heard of them!" OK. So I thought I'd established that I was a teen in the early '80s, sneaking listens to U2, etc.

Then she asked me what music I liked to listen to today. For simplicity's sake, I did NOT AT ALL want to say "Well, for the past couple of weeks, Tchaikovsky cello music because I've been reading a lot about the last of the Russian tsars and that's a great soundtrack." NO. What I did say was, "Well, Aretha Franklin just died recently, so I've been listening to her debut album a lot. And my favorite band of all time is the Beatles."

"The Beatles! Did you ever get to see them in concert?"

Their last concert was in 1966, when I was a year old. I don't think she knew who the Beatles were.

But... she's super-nice, and beautiful. And she was concerned because it was her turn next to recommend a book for her book group, but she didn't know what to suggest. "Life of Pi," she had finally come up with. I told her that I'd heard good things about the movie, but hadn't seen it or read the book. Who was the author? She didn't know. All I could offer was: "If you're not sure, you should check out the reviews for the book on Amazon, to see how other people liked it. If it got good reviews, then maybe your book-club members would also like it."

Thunderclouds (Official Video) ft. Sia, Diplo, Labrinth

This Samsung-ad song on TV kept giving me goosebumps. I finally had to go find out who it was!

Like Kites (2012)

Today smells like kites,
mesquite trees, tumbleweeds, my spotting the secret fort,
wrecked within weeks after my treason.

Ice-cream, too. The Dairy Queen man, with his wife and kids,
ordering me a cone, despite my own sundae.
I threw his "gift" away.

And it smells like the rocks that I picked and picked
from our new two-story lot, throwing in paper bags.
Neighbors mocked: "You'll never make a yard!"
I did, we did. Grass grew. And then we moved.

I like the smell of kites in January, a month
used to things still hanging around, useless.


514 W. Rebecca, Iowa Park, Texas

(A photo of the house for sale today --- that big corner lot is where I picked up all the rocks!)

1941. "A Woman's Face."

I slept with this person, my first lover, from 1989 to 1991.

I was 23 in 1989, she was 36. She was awful to me. I was obsessed with her for the next 10 years. I slept with her once again in 2000, for old time's sake.

Here she is in 2017, at age 66. Photos from a local writers' group meeting.

She's repulsive-looking now! What if she'd wanted me back when I was 23, and I was stuck with this today?

Back when I was 23 and a virgin and she was 36 and an ex-con skank, she was very attractive, physically. And she painted and wrote, which was attractive on the surface. But she painted and wrote very badly. An example of her "verse": "...if at all I hear the call, juice brings me like a bull." This type of thing she would "read" at local gay clubs. It was just constantly stupid. I tried to be supportive (I designed flyers for her "performances," etc.). At the end of it all, I got dumped in '91. Didn't get over it for 9 years. When I look at her and think about her now, I'm repulsed. But... back in the day I had mightily profound feelings for her.

A 1990 poem I wrote for her after a weekend at the Texas coast:


Water Signs

We stood and watched the waves --
the gray maze of our unknowing
swirling below our boots and beach-coats
twirling in the wind

Such whiplash sand -- our gale-torn faces
bled dry but for the frothing whiteness
on your lips and at the edge of where
the sea had dared to go

Given such boundaries, I choose
the warmer shore to drown by -- your mouth,
no eye to my erosion from your force:
I wake, I want -- my fear washed
in the whirlpool of your certainty

And I say I have never been sure,
so sure as this moon-locked tide
that pulled us 'til we met and swept
the distance out to sea.

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And a 1992 poem I wrote for her after our breakup:

Melting in March

I
In the winter things congeal and drops that started apart
(but weren't always real) freeze together briefly, order
winter's waste, prove creation possible out of once
dead gray. (The world shimmers and winks, lit by pale thighs,
the glow of stars atop tinselled trees. No resistance to this, or
if there is: "It's Christmas...")

It's the melt of this that takes me away, the last mush of
Valentine's Day, squish of my fists, velvet hearts soon to
crack in the long dry stretch. Such months need no holiday, fade
to sameness under scorch of sun, dumb leisure for the one who
wanted less.

II
Cracking doesn't work. Crying, once cure, degraded to last gasps;
I gag to show how much I love, shut down on knees before basins
porcelain and pristine, not the murk and mold of my own bowl.
More subliminal, she wipes my ashes clean, asks me to lie
beside her, blames me for a lighter
I did not take. Misconception is criminal.

The way my eyes, your whiskey howl, precede fists and last pleasure.
Twisted face in full-throat lust, the must of deception,
throttled pardon hardened into
the capture you want, crass enchantment in its
last throes. You say I'll regret what I've thrown away -- how can I
lose the one who loses me.

III
But ask for the lawless to depart
and blindness of ages let loose the suffer
to pardon one most vicious and desired. Come unto me,
let mounting be desire and not impending
doom, construction of flounder in this
black pool, oh drool of nonsense and wisdom soon to wed and bed
in other constructs of forgiveness. Let no wanting be
the earthen hell, oh lovely threat, fangless wonder,
imagine the joyness of it. No? Oh YES, a miracle of
white skin, dress sliding off one shoulder, the whiteness,
the giveness of spring, new things in this, the kindest season
after all, the wine, and whiskey lips to sing, not howl, the
late-night call to ask, or whisper, not beg. Beg is the bludgeon,
the dungeon of love, the weak last encroachment that is no song.
Derive this, the drivenness, as past last, no trust, or
Christmas. To sing this well with eyes so wide, see her face
without fear, clear-eyed strength and smile. A gift.
A real Christmas.

IV
(In this spring the miracle is the certainty of small triumphs.)

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She really was a creepy, low-life person to begin with. All the verbiage devoted to her? I think I was in love with the new intense feelings --- obsession and being inspired to write. Today,  not obsessed, I look at these photos and remember my old writers' groups in the '90s and am happy that this now-old, untalented person has found a sympatico local group that wants to listen to her.

p.s. Upon re-reading after two decades, I still think "Melting in March" is a classic poem.

Aretha Franklin 2015 Kennedy Center Honors

The phony reactions of Carole King and Obama nearly ruin this for me. But Aretha is great, especially in the moment when she tosses the coat off.

From "A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution" by Orlando Figes (1996)

Only on p. 271 of 824 so far, but here are some passages that I've noted:

When people learn as adults what children are normally taught in schools, they often find it difficult to progress beyond the simplest abstract ideas. These tend to lodge deep in their minds, making them resistant to the subsequent absorption of knowledge on a more sophisticated level. They see the world in black-and-white terms because their narrow learning obscures any other coloration. Marxism had much the same effect on workers...It gave them a simple solution to the problems of "capitalism" and backwardness without requiring that they think independently.

The underside of this idealism [of the Russian intelligentsia at the turn of the last century] was a badgering didacticism, a moral dogmatism and intolerance, which in its own way was just as harmful as the censorship it opposed. Convinced  that their own ideas were the key to the future of the world, that the fate of humanity rested on the outcome of their own doctrinal struggles, the Russian intelligentsia divided up the world into the forces of "progress" and "reaction," friends and enemies of the people's cause, leaving no room for doubters in between. Here were the origins of the totalitarian world view.

Just curious...

After not having had sex for so long (years!) and being so isolated from everyone, and liking to think and read, was it meant that I should be a nun or monk of some sort? I'm serious: What I've been going through for years now isn't just a "drought" (when I think of "drought" I think of a period of a year or under).

I don't think I'd make a very good nun/monk, though. I constantly have intellectually rebellious  thoughts that I have no desire whatsoever to quench. And upon recently reading the letters of Tsar Nicholas and Alexandra and the memoirs of Alix's closest friend, Anya: Alexandra's constant references to praying to god for guidance/salvation are both stultifying and annoying --- they certainly didn't do any good in her situation!

I don't know what it is. I'm puzzled. Many people, when confronted by a deeply troubling emotional situation, do turn to God. But they're often lifers in prison or very old women --- with nothing else left to hope for. I still have a decade or so left before I'm at that utterly decrepit stage, still some free will left.

Aretha Franklin - Freeway Of Love (1985)

Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (1967)

One goal of my five days off...

...aside from the usual weekend goals of "do laundry" or "clean a bathroom," was to "get the damn 'study' in order."

I moved into this 2-bedroom apartment in April 2017, with one express purpose being to devote the extra room to a study holding most of my books. I did set it up that way. But in October 2017, a couple of 20-something guys moved in right next door, and there was constantly bass from stereo coming from that side of my apartment, so I kind of stayed away from what was supposed to be a nice peaceful reading room.

Over my 5-day holiday, one of my goals (sadly) was to finally report the guys next door to apartment management for their ongoing loud music. Most often coming from the wall next to my bedroom, but also affecting the study. I've kept a list of disturbances since last October, when they moved in; things were in the realm of "normal" until the past month. During August, though, I've had to go over and knock on their door twice to ask them to please turn their stereo down. Twice in a month was finally the tipping point, and I went in to the management office and asked what could be done about the disturbances: (1) A written notice; (2) a request to move out.

Given the confidence of someone in authority supposedly being able to DO something, I finally re-approached the room and spent a few hours in there, rearranging things. It looks nice to me. I hope to be able to finally spend time there. (It appears like a perfect place for fall/winter reading, especially of my recently ordered Romanov books.)

TCM's Summer Under the Stars: Mastroianni and Crawford

Friday, August 31, was my beloved Joan Crawford's day, which I'd planned for for months, taking that day off, and the Thursday before, for a 5-day Labor Day holiday. I knew I'd enjoy the Joan Day, but I was pleasantly surprised to be inspired by the Marcello Mastroianni Day on the Thursday before, which I spent on the couch with a hangover, initially feeling miserable.

Most interesting and life-inspiring: Ginger and Fred, La Notte, 8-1/2, A Special Day.

Why so inspiring? The films were thoughtful and surprising. I was lying around sluggish and hateful, thinking that both my life and the world had gone to hell --- the latter landscape currently controlled by shallow and dumb Twitter mob opinions, for one.

And then all of these Mastroianni films allowed me to see a fresh (albeit decades-old) view from some actually intelligent people. (Intelligence not being "trendy.") The films I mentioned above did not in any way have happy endings (I cried especially at the end of "A Special Day"), but they were all so beautiful in their honesty and humanity. If such representation of a complicated and intelligent world/personal view could exist once, it could exist again.

6:00 AM	Le Notti Bianche (1957)
8:00 AM	Priest's Wife, The (1971)
10:00 AM	Ginger and Fred (1986)
12:15 PM	Slightly Pregnant Man, A (1973)
2:00 PM	Family Diary (1962)
4:00 PM	Marriage - Italian Style (1964)
5:45 PM	La Notte (1961)
8:00 PM	8 1/2 (1963)
10:30 PM	Special Day, A (1977)
12:30 AM	Organizer, The (1963)
2:45 AM	Pizza Triangle, The (1970)
4:30 AM	Place for Lovers, A (1969)