If I ever killed myself...

First of all, I have no way to kill myself. The most usual way for women is pills, but I have no access to any doctor, so there's no danger of any overdose of a prescription. And I don't hate myself enough, nor am I ever crazy or violent enough, to ever buy a gun and blow my brains out or slice my wrists with one of the recently purchased pretty Amazon knife set.

I have, though, thought about the cats. Whatever I do or do not do, I would leave the back sliding-glass door open for about 12 inches. So they're not stuck in here! They started out stray, and I gave them a good 4 years of happiness and food and safety... Mama and Cinco were strays to begin with, so they might be OK, since they know about being on their own. The three now-4-year-old-kittens---Mini, and Pete, and Sasha---are going to be mightily confused. I think that the fat Sasha would follow Mama and possibly be OK, and I think Pete is aggressive enough to be excited about being outdoors for the first time and would actually catch and eat things. I'm afraid, though, that my little Mini might not survive.

This all isn't an actual plan, but it is a contemplation.

p.s. Thanks, Jesus, for the past Easter weekend! When you're alone, and you stop and think about it, and watch multiple historical docs about it... It's horrifying. Ah, family dinners on Easter make what actually happened seem so much nicer! Which reminds me: Maybe 10 years ago at Christmas, at my mom's house with my brother/sister-in-law and nephews, the question came up: "What is Christmas?" The nephews had no clue what the holiday of Christmas was based on. They're now grown men, and I doubt that they know anything more today---especially since the concept of "Easter" is a bit more complicated.

The Beatles: I Saw Her Standing There LIVE IN GERMANY

Swimmer Riley Gaines assaulted at SFSU

My grad school alma mater.

Radical freaks at San Francisco State University attacked Riley Gaines for "daring" to say that trans swimmer "Lia" Thomas (rated 80th as a male swimmer but 1st as a female) shouldn't be allowed to compete in the women's swimming division. After her speech, Gaines was trapped inside a classroom for 3 hours because the police were afraid to break up the radicals.

Bud Light: Trans-Woman Dylan Mulvaney Ad

I normally hate responses like "I'll never purchase this again" when upset, but this case is more serious. Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) recently gave a public award (and created a special beer can) in celebration of Dylan Mulvaney's first year of "being a woman." You can watch Mulvaney on YouTube and see that this person is in no way a "woman." He's a female impersonator that broadly apes female characteristics, but in no way represents an actual woman or a woman's behavior.

As a gay person familiar with gay clubbing and gay lifestyles: Mulvaney is a regular trope on the gay scene: A female impersonator. Which is fine. But when did such impersonation cross over into mainstream people being forced to acknowledge such a clown as being an actual woman? Even people in the gay underground knew/know better.

Post-2016, I discontinued my decades-long subscription to "The New Yorker" because of their irrationality and unintelligence. Just tonight, I sent the below message to the Anheuser-Busch (Bud) website:

I'm a lesbian who's been a regular purchaser of Budweiser beer for at least 20 years now. However, I was extremely disturbed by your recent promotion of Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson for your beer, and as a recipient of a "special" beer can celebrating her alleged anniversary as a "woman." Mulvaney is a trans-woman. She's not a woman. "Trans-woman" and "woman" are two completely different things. The former is a "how I feel" choice involving surgeries and hormones; the latter is a biological fact. (Follow the science.) I'm completely repulsed and dismayed that both your company president and marketing department would sign off on such a ridiculous and ill-thought-out publicity campaign. I know it's "trendy" for people, when mad, to say "I'll never buy this product again." But in my case, I just bought a case of Coors from my supermarket for the first time in over 20 years. Didn't want to, because I've always liked Bud better. But I cannot, in good conscience, buy from a company that overtly calls a female impersonator like Mulvaney a "woman" AND, weirdly, publicly celebrates this person as a woman.
p.s. I'm not "right-wing." As I mentioned above, I'm a gay woman, and an Independent voter over the past 40 years (90 percent Democrat until recently).

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

Haven't yet drunk the Coors that I purchased---I'm hoping it's better than Bud. Because I really don't want to give Anheuser-Busch any more of my money.

A Tribute to MONICA VITTI (and the '60s)

Bobby Vee: Take Good Care Of My Baby (1961)

After watching early '60s stars in both music and film, I can see why there was some revolution needed. Well-crafted but utterly dead. Very much needed to be swept away.

Shaun Cassidy: Take Good Care Of My Baby (1977)

Song originally released 1961 by Bobby Vee (written by King/Goffin)

Shaun Cassidy's voice still gives me goosebumps today---His voice is very sensual and warm.

If--- (Rudyard Kipling, 1895)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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

Actually thought-provoking and inspiring. When poetry actually meant something to people.

A style of writing that went out of fashion post-WWI, when being neurotic---and describing one's neuroses in depth---became the "thing." But at least from WWI through, say, the mid-1960s, such description was done rather well by Eliot and Pound, then later by Stevens, Lowell, Plath. Now, though? Completely devolved into once-credible poetry magazines accepting poorly/dumbly written poems based on whether the writer is black or not, or was raped or not, rather than the merit of the writing.

I grew up admiring what I thought was the intellectual seriousness of such magazines. Have since been (as of approximately 2016) disabused of such naive notions.

NPR labeled "State-Affiliated Media" by Twitter

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2023/04/06/twitter-npr-account-state-affiliated-media/11612530002/

Thank you, Elon Musk! NPR is not a news station, it's a Marxist mouthpiece that has promoted every single talking point of Marxists (and the Obama and Biden admins) since at least 2008. The economy, climate change, immigration, crime---every single topic covered by NPR (and PBS, for that matter) has taken the Marxist viewpoint: Capitalists evil, climate change a fact, illegal immigration good, crime just poor misunderstood black boys and the karens that report them.

Back in the day, I used to listen to NPR while going to/from work. Just wanted to avoid commercials on other stations. It was only 20 mins or so a day, so I never quite picked up on a trend. But I did have an awakening of sorts back when I moved into my current apartment in 2017. The cable company didn't get stuff set up according to schedule, so I had no TV (which I'm addicted to!) for over 4 days. Not wanting to sit around in silence, and wanting some voice from the outside world, I had my radio on and set to the NPR station. One thing that stood out was someone telling a story about a family picnic in a public park. The family was held up at gunpoint by a black man. But instead of getting "all mad" about it, they invited him to join their picnic! And made a friend! Jesus H. Christ. This one story was indicative of the general media presentations of delightful black families roasting marshmallows and illegal immigrant families knitting doilies and trannies who enjoy being around kids and poor polar bears forced to migrate south. A land where the mentally ill Greta Thunberg is considered a voice of reason rather than a screeching, neurotic, ill-informed teen.

EVERY SINGLE TALKING POINT of both International Marxists and the US Democrat Party is constantly promoted by NPR on a daily basis. Never once is any opposing viewpoint presented. That's not "public radio." That is, indeed, "State-Affiliated Media." And why should the US government---which consists of two parties and many views in between---continue to pay for this Marxist mouthpiece?

Shaun Cassidy: Right Before Your Skies (1978)

Places please
The lights go down
A brand new town
And we all look no 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

And suddenly
We're so far away
From yesterday
And tomorrow will be far from here
We just disappear
Living in disguise
Remember how it used to be
Right before your skies

We just disappear
Living in disguise
Remember how it used to be
Right before your skies

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

I liked this song (written by Shaun Cassidy himself) as a 12/13-year-old.
Listening to it today, I still think his voice and thoughts are moving.
And one line that has always stuck with me since I was a kid:
"I hear the place was packed last night
but last night's group played basketball..."

Shaun Cassidy: That's Rock-n-Roll (1977)

My very first concert! In 1977, when I was 12 years old.
(Thanks, Mom, for taking me and my best friend Debbie!
At the Fort Worth Tarrant County Convention Center.)
This clip is from German TV, also in 1977.

As I watch this 45 years later:
Shaun Cassidy here is still cute and moves very well and has a very shapely ass (which I didn't notice at the time). And this song is still very catchy and good. No shame at all in Shaun being my first!

Oh wait, there's even more... (Incel Alert)

(Don't get excited, it's very, very minor. but it just bugged me.)

One other thing that mildly bothered me over the past week: Usually, I order cheap cat stuff from Walmart: Both jugs of litter and 16-oz containers of Temptations cat treats. The price for both is usually a lot lower at Walmart than elsewhere. Or else I get the Temptations from my local grocery store, where it's only slightly more.

This week, though, I ran out of Temptations early, before my upcoming weekend shopping. So before my cats freaked out at not having their 9pm treat, I went to the local CVS pharmacy (which I hardly ever go to) to get some Temptations. When I entered, I couldn't find the pet-food section, so I found one guy working there and asked him: He could barely speak, just grunted to go one aisle over. OK. When it came time to check out, there was no person at any register, just self-checkouts. Fine. But the machine read my first Temptations but then refused to read the second cannister. So I had to go find the non-speaking store clerk and ask him to come up to the checkout. His response to me: "So, are you scared of robots?" Insinuating that I didn't understand how "self check-out" worked... Grrr.

My ideal response, which I didn't think of at the time, was: "So, are you scared of human interaction, you creepy incel?" Didn't even get a bag when he reluctantly checked me out. To make matters worse to my thrifty German soul: 16 oz of Tempations cost $10.99 at this CVS. Whereas online at Walmart or at my grocery store, they're about $8.48. CVS has a HUGE markup! Kicking myself for not ordering ahead and avoiding the extra cost and the idiotic store clerk---who wasn't even in his 20s! This snarky guy was 30-something!

"6 Major Shifts Happening in 2023"

 The last week has been an unpleasant one for me, especially monetarily! 

(Plus I'm a bit disturbed by the banana-republic charges against Trump: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime,” said Lavrentiy Beria, who was Stalin's deputy premier and secret police chief from 1941 until Stalin’s death in 1953.) 

I've been on pretty much an even keel for the past 3 years or so (primarily upon making a ton of money at my current, soon-to-end job, and being able to work from home, which is VERY relaxing!), but the fact that the money train may soon derail is, indeed, kind of scary. I don't fear that I'll end up on the street or anything, but when I find another job that will almost certainly pay less than my current one, it's going to be bad for my ego---and for the sense that I'm "progressing," at least salary-wise. I'm also not looking forward to the highly annoying travel times to/from a new job, in case I'm not able to find something remote. And in the past 3 years of rolling off my couch the few feet to my work-desk, I've also discovered that it's a real pain to shower and get made up and dressed every day of the week! AND to deal with annoying people at work! (When you're all at home, everyone's a lot more palatable!) 

Luckily, I didn't make any large purchases in the last 3 years (like a house, which I went searching for in 2020; or a car; or even a couch), so I've got enough savings to last for a bit. It's just the "not knowing" what's going to happen!

Aside from the unsettling work news in the past week, there was also the fact that Best Buy took over $200 from my bank account last week without me even noticing for a few days! (See earlier blog entry.) It got worked out, which is a great mental relief, but it never should have happened to begin with.

AND WAIT, there's more! Over a week ago, I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, about $150-worth of stuff (more crystals, and books about crystals, and bowls---lots of good stuff that I was really looking forward to). Delivery was supposed to be Saturday, April 1, or Sunday, April 2. I was home all day both days, just lying around, watching TV and movies and reading. And constantly getting up every few hours and opening my front door to see if the stuff had arrived yet. Nothing. When this Monday came, I finally checked my Amazon account and it said the delivery had been made at 1pm on Saturday. AND the driver had taken a picture to prove it! What the hell! I mean, seriously, I had my shades up in my living room the whole time, and I didn't see (or hear) any suspicious person making off with my packages in broad daylight. The photo did prove that the stuff had arrived, so I didn't really have a claim to make with Amazon. I just sat around feeling like crap at the loss of money and then paranoid about who the hell in my apartment complex was a friggin' broad-daylight thief! (There aren't really street people walking around the complex, and my apartment is in the interior, away from the road, so I'm pretty sure it was an "inside job.") 

Anyway, I decided to go ahead and contact Amazon Chat support about all the lost stuff. The guy's first question: "Did you see the delivery photo?" I admitted I had. So I thought that was the end of it and I was just SOL. But no---he then proceeded to list everything that I had mentioned, one by one, asking officially if I wanted a re-delivery or a refund!!! How nice was that! So I got my $200+ back from Best Buy, and now my Amazon stuff is being re-delivered this Thursday and Friday (and you can bet this time I'll be tracking the progress on Amazon AND peering out my front door every hour!).

So I got a little bit lucky. And at least my mind is a lot more at ease re these minor things. But, still, a lot of oddball stuff happening in the past week or so. I'd heard that weird things happened during "Mercury Retrograde," so I checked online astrological calendars about those dates---nope. No Mercury retrograde. I did, though, come upon this interesting astrological site with info on "6 Major Shifts Happening in 2023":

https://chaninicholas.com/the-6-major-shifts-happening-in-2023/

3. Pluto enters Aquarius

March 23rd, 2023

Pluto is the planet associated with wealth, power, secrets, mystery, death, and underworld journeys. When it enters Aquarius on March 23rd, Pluto will carry those themes into the realm of information technology, data, science, systems of power, and communal potency.

The last time Pluto passed through Aquarius was from 1777 to 1797, a period that witnessed both the French and American revolutions. Pluto in this systems-minded air sign will transform our understanding of the power of the collective. We’ll witness the value — and cost — of information, and maybe even attempt democratizing it in a whole new way. 

Pluto is a transformer. Whatever house Pluto tunnels into for you will be the source of awe-inspiring resources over the coming years. If Saturn in Aquarius clarified the challenges that now face the collective, Pluto reveals what needs to be revamped — on a personal and social level. Pluto will only linger in Aquarius for three months in 2023, but it will spend two decades in this sign when it returns in 2024. Think of this initial sprint as the foreshadowing of seismic shifts to come.

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With my new in-flux job situation, and with what's societally happening to Trump (love him or hate him, the current (il)legal goings-on by uber-partisan Manhattan DA Bragg---who upon election in 2021 publicly vowed to get Trump---are insane and truly indicative of a banana republic that persecutes political rivals rather than a nation based on impartial laws), I do feel that something's in the air.

I know, I know---a bit/lot ridiculous to conflate my unease about Best Buy/Amazon dealings with political events! But... I'm a long-time Independent voter with a sense of order. This current illogical chaos in the US (crime, border, economy, persecution of political rivals), I cannot stand.

Now...to catch that thief in my apartment complex! And maybe, according to Pluto's shake-up prediction, someone can truly Drain the Swamp in the next 20 years.

 

Beware of Best Buy!

A year ago, I bought a new computer from Best Buy. At the time, I had all the info from my old computer transferred over to my new computer. The fee for doing so at the time was apparently more than a year-long "Geek Squad" membership. So the store talked me into a yearly "Geek Squad" membership, which covered the transferral plus more.

A year later, I've continued to get regular Best Buy e-mails, as usual. Not paying any attention to them. But I just checked my bank account: Best Buy charged me over $200 for an automatic renewal of the "Geek Squad" service.

I had to go and spend a lot of time with the Best Buy site and with my bank to get this $200+ charge refunded to my account.

BEWARE of Best Buy scams! And please check your bank statements every month! (Back in the olden days, I used to check mine monthly---but not so much in the past few years, I'm ashamed to say. With today's automation, I somehow thought things were safer---this illicit $200 charge taken out of my account by Best Buy woke me up.)

Film and Photographic Glimpses of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Thinking of this ill-fated couple's happy beginnings reminds me of what I found most happy in my early years:

Ginny (spring and summer of 1983)
Kathy/Kris (spring and summer of 1988)
Mollie (spring/summer/fall/winter 1989/1990)
Brian and "Trash Soup" (1991/1992)

After that, kinda just me thrashing about aimlessly and coming upon Internet people. As someone who lived a life pre-Internet, no one on the Internet is the equivalent of real-life people.

When you're young, you think that all that is happening to you is because of your "worthy soul." Nah---It's just because you look young and cute.

Bay City Rollers: Bye Bye Baby (Top of the Pops, 1975)

The Bay City Rollers were the first band that I ever loved. Would've been the first band that I ever got to see in concert, except their date in Fort Worth (Tarrant County Convention Center) was cancelled for lack of sales. (That "first concert honor" later went to Shaun Cassidy.)
Today, over 40 years later, I still like the BCR and still listen to their music at least once every month or so.
Which reminded me: My now-20-year-old nephew's first concert was Drake. Because Drake was the cool thing at the time. Will my nephew ever obsessively buy all of Drake's music or listen to him 40 years from now? I doubt it. He most likely went to the concert just because it was something to do, not because he got a teenaged thrill from his music.

If I was so obnoxious as to previously revel in my $68K salary...

 ...then I suppose I must also be so humble as to admit now: The Govt. contract that paid the wonderful salary is now GONE! (A contract that we've had for the past 7 years and that we thought was a sure thing has now gone to a "Small Disadvantaged Business." Meaning minority-owned---nothing to do with merit or on who's been working on the project for the past 7 years.) I've got about 2 months to find another job.

Damn. For the past 3 years post-Wuhan (aka COVID), it's been extremely luxurious to not have to get up and drive anywhere, rather, just roll off the couch and move a few feet to the computer! I've gotten spoiled. And my looks and clothes have also gone down-hill for the past 3 years---Do I ever go outdoors and get fresh air? No. Do I ever buy any wardrobe other than sneakers or sweats or T-shirts? No.

While I'm not looking forward to dealing with traffic or stupid office-people, it might, though, be nice to make some actual real-life friends in a new office! (I remember in the "olden days," actually going out for drinks after work...)

US War Deaths

US Civil War: 655,000
WWII: 405,000
WWI: 116,000
Vietnam: 58,000
Korea: 36,000
Revolutionary War: 25,000

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

What I Was Taught As a Kid

(1) That Abraham Lincoln was a "great" president and "saved" our country.
(2) That John F. Kennedy was a good president.

In the Civil War, over 620,000 men died thanks to Lincoln. All utterly avoidable. By "avoidable" I mean that the slave trade was pretty much abolished by European countries over the next 20 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom

Though it took African nations longer to enact such bans. In short, the slave trade would have come to a halt by the end of the century anyway, sans the wholesale slaughter of American men. (Note also that there would have been no slave trade to European countries had warring African tribes not sold their own people into slavery. Historical fact.)

RE Lincoln: When you're responsible for the deaths of 620,000 men in your own country, you're not by any means a "great" president. Rather, you're utterly inept---which is a kind word for your stupidity. Think about it: What other leader of a country in the history of this planet was responsible for the deaths of 620,000 of his own men---not in defense of their nation, but rather turned against other countrymen? And over half of the dead were on your own side, and didn't even want to fight to begin with but were forced into it. See NYC Draft Riots.

And this idiot is considered a "hero" and "great"? The only other names that come to mind in this ignorant anti-pantheon: Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Mao---and these guys had actual intellectual, political aims and killed for a political purpose. Lincoln, on the other hand, was just a dummy.

RE JFK: Kennedy was responsible for the US involvement in Vietnam and for the Berlin Wall being built and for the Cuban Missile Crisis and for the Bay of Pigs crisis. Despite how cute he was, he was an awful, ill-equipped, utterly light-weight president. We had to deal with the Berlin Wall trauma for decades because he was too weak to challenge the Soviets in his few days in office. (The Soviets would never have dreamed of challenging former WWII General and President Eisenhower by building the Berlin Wall.)

History was presented to me one way while growing up. But I'm just now starting to learn the actual facts about what happened.

Pierrot Le Fou (1965)

A song about one's life-line vs. one's "thigh line."

Godard is often annoying, as is his wife/leading-lady Anna Karina. In this particular case, the original novel upon which the movie was based had a bourgeois guy running off with his teenaged baby-sitter. A bit too young and controversial, even for Godot, so he made the woman "of age" but then had her behave like a child the whole time. One other dumbly memorable scene is Karina loudly moaning up and down the beach about being bored, while Belmondo "tries to write." Sacre bleu! 

 

Godard can't maintain a narrative about an actual relationship, so the film, by the end, devolves into terrorists and shooting, etc., as do most of his films. (Today, Tarantino--who obviously owes much to Godard, style-wise--has also incorporated most of Godard's dumbly gun-filled endings; you're supposed to learn from and build on the past, not simply repeat it!)