A list, Part 1

The following things are no longer available to write songs about:

1. Loving someone whom is either a) unavailable b) not interested 

2. Reflections on a relationship which has passed and your feelings on it.

3. Inebriated reflections on a better time.

4. Loving someone to the point it becomes painful.

5. The following personal effects: blue jeans, boots, ponytails, trucks. 

6. Love being painful and/or making you crazy.

7. Quantification the degrees of "over" you are a person or situation.

8. Overt celebration of personal independence.

9. Living in a sparsely populated area v. living in a densely populated area.

10. How the Holy Trinity factors into your personal decision making process.

11. Having the most of the following things: chains, women, cars, homes or boats. 

12. Experiences with the following situations: being country, tailgates, being a VIP, being the apex of attention on a dance floor.

13. Personal experience with being over served by a bartender.

14. Women doing the following things: drinking wine, doing shots of tequila or overly elaborate girls' nights. 

15. Men doing the following things: Drinking beer, watching football, discussing their adolescent greatness. 

16. Celestial comparisons to ocular vesteges.

17. Any discussions of locations for begging, i.e., on one's knees.

18. Not being able to understand/control one's own emotions.

19. Precipitation and it's place in your life.

20. Your evening activities, when they start, when they end and the locations in which they take place. 

Thank You, 

The Management. 

Definition

The Sly Kitten and I exchanged back and forth texts today regarding the differing definitions of "inure" based on if you are utilizing the verb transitively or intransitively. The definitions vary based on if there is an object involved. The word appeared in my personal statement for my grad school applications, due largely to the Kitten's helpful editing. 

It is somewhat amazing how the same word can hold such different meanings. Transitively, to inure means to become accustomed too. Children in war torn countries are inured to violence. Intransitively, inure is an additional benefit. My masters degree will inure me to a potential employer. 

This, as well as an ongoing dialog with Spicy, has me thinking about privilege. More specifically, the discussion of "white privilege", which is a nasty little reality that so many of my fellow caucasians are anxious too absolve themselves of. 

White privilege rarely comes up as a topic without a significant response. Often, it's almost a knee jerk reaction for a white person to quickly indemnify themselves and explain the lack of privilege in their life. 

"I've worked for everything I have."

"No one has given me anything." 

Quick rebuttals intended to clearly show that they do not come from a privileged background. (Often implied in this conversation is "If I did it, so can anyone else."...but thats for another conversation.)

However, much like differing definitions of inure, privilege has differing definitions based on it's intended use. 

In the case of white privilege, it's not a discussion of a white person's work ethic or contributions to their own success. Discussing white privilege does not trivialize your moral character. 

In reality, white privilege has NOTHING to do with you, personally. 

White privilege is not being born rich or poor, with advantages or without. It's not about being able to attend college or needing to go directly into the work force. White privilege has nothing to do with possessions or lifestyle. 

It's about life. It's about making the assumption that someone is dangerous based on their skin color. It's about assuming that, upon being pulled over, a white man reaching to his glove compartment is looking for his registration and a black man is looking for his gun. (To quote Jay-Z, "are you carrying a weapon, I know a lot of you are.) It's to assume that a black child does not have two involved and caring parents or that the black woman who just entered your store is attempting to steal from you. 

No one checks their door locks when I walk by or stiffens through their shoulders and ensures that their purse is closed when I walk by. A cop is highly unlikely to assume that I'm a threat upon pulling me over. No one sees me moving into a new home and thinks "A single girl in her 30's? There goes the neighborhood." 

Stretch your vocabulary to allow for different definitions of "privilege".  Accepting that there are different definitions of the word does not negate the life you have built for yourself. It does not denigrate the obstacles you have overcome and certainly does not imply that you "had it easy." Accepting that there is a bias does not take away from your struggles. It simply acknowledges a different struggle. 

And let's not inure another generation of children to the bias of today.

Stuff I think is stupid, Vol 1 : Naming your kids stupid shit

Yeah, I get it. Everyone gets to name their kid what they want...yep...with you there. However, this does not mean that your choices in names does not leave you open for ridicule. 

The trend seems two fold, either name your kid something that sounds like an old New England last name (Grayson, Easton, Flanner, etc) or name your kid something and spell it in some obscure fashion. 

What ever happened to normal names? I'm all for originality and by own admission, cannot not stand my own first name. I'll also admit that my generation had A LOT of Jennifers, Ashleys, etc. However, if you look at the rosters for your average pre-school class, it's as though everyone is trying to be unique with their name choice and arrived at EXACTLY THE SAME NAME. I know 4 Graysons under 4 alone...

So let's talk about this, where are the Laurens? The Elizabeths? Can I get a Sarah up in here? A Jessica to save my soul?

I feel for these "eclectically" named children, for life will always be tough for them. Moxie is very cute for a 5 year old, but might be a little hard to run a boardroom with. Granted, if the child is going to run a boardroom, she's going to need some Moxie, but teaching her to have and giving her the name are different things entirely. 

There are also names that are just ugly. Certain names where, when introduced to their child I think "gosh, I'd name my kid that IF ALL THE OTHER NAMES IN THE WORLD WERE ALREADY TAKEN." Poor kids, life will always be tough. 

I pity the kids who are named for a character in a movie or a tv show, but at least they will always be able to say "well, mom was a really big True Blood fan." or "my dad really liked Game of Thrones" as sad as that may be. But the poor kids name after luxury items, I'm looking at you Lexus and Porsche...you poor little darlings. 

And then there are the special parents who name their children a seemingly normal name, but spell it with either a useless consonant or with a unique twist which ensures they will spend their ENTIRE LIFE spelling their name out for people. "It's Jessica, but with a K. Jessika" or the poor kid with the misfortune to be named Jaxson. 

One day, all the Graysons,  Eatons, Jessika and Jaxson's are going to go on their 8th grade trip to Washington DC and find themselves with their "spending money" at one of those schlock shops where you can buy a shot glass or a license plate with their name on it. 

And not one of these dear angels will be able to purchase one. While all the kids named Ryan or Jennifer or even Bethany will be able to choose between personalized items, poor Easton will be depressed and empty handed. 

And poor Moxie, she won't even be able to find something to buy. 

in case you don't feel lousy enough...

I've spent upwards of 6 hours on the phone with the Illinois Department of Employment Security; and for all that effort I don't feel any more secure. 

I feel like if I call back in 2 hours, it will be a different reason that they have been holding up my benefits for 5 weeks. A different thing I need to send them. 

And a different person who is going to be rude to me. 

Today was a breaking point, as when I called last week I was told a very specific document to send them, which I did. Today, I was told that the envelope and cover letter were scanned into my file. However, inexplicably, the actual document was not. 

As he was telling me that I would now need to FAX it to this different number and that it would take another week have it reviewed, approved and have the funds released. 

Another week? I melted into the rug in my bedroom. 

How is this reasonable and justified? How is this okay? How in the mother-effing world does someone expect you to a) live for 5 weeks without any money b)know the in's and out's of unemployment laws and c)spend hours upon hours of time on hold asking questions, when every time to you to a live person, there is a different answer?

I'm so fucking frustrated. I feel so defeated. I'm angry about this situation, chiefly, that I am in it in the first place, but then that the situation is so fucked up. I'm also so frustrated trying to figure out what to do next, where to go with my life.

So just incase I didn't feel awful enough, someone i've never met is telling me what I've done wrong. 

Makes me hate people. 

A wretch like me.

As violence unfolded last week, one of the first things I did was text Spicy and check in with her.

For all her "Spicy-ness" she's a tender soul and I knew that whatever emotions I was having, she was having more of them. She's a black girl raising a black girl. It was hard enough for me to verbalize my feelings, much less verbalize them and give them context and meaning and understanding from parent to child. 

And really, how do you explain racism to a little girl?I can't even explain it to myself. 

In the midst of our text conversation, Spice invited me to join her and her daughter at church on Sunday. 

My first thought? As a Catholic, we don't call it an obligation for nothin...and I like my Sunday morning sleep. But as soon as I was thinking about logical ways to politely decline, I thought, "here I am, trying to understand, to do better and be better...and someone is presenting me with an opportunity to do that."

...and I realized so amount of Sunday morning sleep was more worthwhile than Sunday morning in Church with Spicy. 

I think I could end up converting. 

Culturally, Black people talk an awful lot more about being blessed. My black friends are a lot quicker to give glory to God and talk about praise. 

I realize that not every Black American attends the same church, or worships in the same way. I understand that they are as diverse as Caucasians and worship as diversely. 

However, in my experience, I think I'd talk a lot more about #blessed, if I spent a lot more time in a pew with Spicy. It's freaking joyful. Black Americans were under fire this week, literally and figuratively, yet I sat in a building with 300 or so people, on the south side of Chicago and felt not only their pain, but their genuine joy. 

Full disclosure, it's pretty hard to not feel joyful while you are clapping your hands and singing along with the full band, the 50 or so choir members and a choir director that I could best describe as "Jesus's Hype Man". 

And to think that we Catholics tend to feel progressive with an acoustic guitar at a Saturday night Mass!

However, for all these blessings and all this praise, I was certainly the palest face in the audience. Of that I was hyper aware of. This is not to say that in my almost decade of friendship with Spicy, I haven't found myself as the representative Caucasian in any number of situations. 

However, this was a new feeling. Bringing someone to worship with you is a very personal experience. I realized at one point that it took more faith for Spicy to bring me to her church than for me to go. That's a humbling thought in to have in the midst of 300 people who have watched their culture and their race be torn apart on the Nightly News as recently as the day before. 

However, for as hyper aware of it I was, I doubt that half the people in the room noticed the shiny white face, blonde hair and blue eyes that sat among them. These people have serious things to pray for and not among them is "I hope this White person feels welcome." They made me feel welcome by making me feel ordinary. 

Having spent most of my adult life as a Catholic, I'm used to a very regimented service and using the bulletin to know what Catholic business are in the area. 

The Pastor chucking the script because his people needed individually prayed over, is somewhat out of my religious reality. Watching him move around the room, praying over his congregation personally, often by name, was humbling. I thought back to my early 20s when my Mass buddy and I would make bets on how long communion would take. Loser had to buy dinner. 

In the honest message that he delivered without a script and from the heart that followed, the pain and confusion of the world was evident. He addressed his people truthfully, with humility and admitted that he might not have all the answers. He stood before his congregation and admitted he was only human. That he felt anger and rage at situations. That he had felt devalued and vulnerable out in the world. That sometimes he lacked understanding. 

He acknowledged the anger his community had and validated it, but asked them to look for a broader perspective. He agreed with them that it's so easy to be furious and that they had a right to be, but pleaded for a greater understand and for the Black community to propagate it. 

In other words, he lead.

I felt the palpable pain of a room full of people, but felt their hope as well. In the midst of sadness, they prayed for love.

Without intention, they prayed for a wretch like me. 

We are no so different. We are not so the same, but we are not so different. 

Manners my mother didn't teach me...

Religion and politics are best kept out of polite company...or so we are told from the time we are old enough to have polite company. 

Keep controversy out of it. 

...and we do...for the most part...because as Ron White so famously stated in a comedy routine, "You can't fix stupid."

Which often means that we let stupid go on rants in living rooms and backyards around the country, while educated and thoughtful people sit quietly, realizing that they cannot, conceptually, change a moron. 

We've all done it. Let the person with the worst ideas and the loudest voice rant until someone pipes up at a downbeat in conversation, "So, do you think the Cubs will win the pennant this year?" (Or if you are the granddaughter of Eleanor, "Do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?")

We change the topic. We move on and hope that the person doing the speaking will get the hint.

The trouble is, silence is often confused with agreement. We change the topic and move as quickly as possible to a banal and meaningless topic. 

Sports, the weather, a movie, puppies, kittens...unicorns. 

ANYTHING which will get us past the uncomfortable conversation. 

This week, seven different times, someone took their last breath because, as a whole, we are a nation of people avoiding uncomfortable conversations. 

We've muzzled ourselves in the name of manners and in the meantime let intolerant and dangerous viewpoints to take centerstage. 

I'm still in the process of assessing my feelings about this week and working through the notions of my own privilege v. the notion that I'm muzzling my own voice on matters I care deeply about. I'll get back to that in another time. 

This week, as the bodies of 7 people grew cold, I thought about the muzzle I have put on myself and realized that if there is to be change, it's not going to be one huge sweeping change. We are not building an arc in preparation of 40 days and 40 nights of rain. 

Change will be minute, possibly unnoticed differences that average nobodies, like me, make. Change will be found in the small things we do differently and how those small differences add up. A penny's worth of change will eventually add up to a dollar...and from there...

So tonight, for the first time, I challenged polite company. At a gathering in which I knew no one but my friend who had invited me, the conversation went political and in the midst of a conversation over immigration, this weeks violence came up. 

I, who have sat quietly so many times and waiting for the conversation to change, stood up...quietly, as I did not want to make a scene, I stated, "I'm sorry, we can debate safe borders forever, but I cannot let you continue discussing this weekend violence without speaking up."

I did not raise my voice, I did not "fight fire with fire" and it was hard. Difficult because I wanted to take him down and expose him for the uninformed racist he appears to be, difficult because I was afraid that I was causing controversy in an unknown situation. 

But yet, confident in the knowledge that this small change was important to me. 

With an even tone I corrected his information. Politely, I let him know that the information he was referencing had been disproved. Respectfully, I told him that, I, indeed feel strongly that Black Lives Matter, but not because I feel that other lives do not matter. Indeed, because all lives matter, Black Lives have to matter as well...and right now, the universe is showing us in brilliant definition, that we have failed to reinforce that Black Lives Matter. 

We must do better. Skin color is NOT a weapon. A black mother should not be required to teach her child to be polite, respectful and stay alive. No mother should have to teach their child to keep their hands visible at all times, in the event of a brush with enforcement. 

Today, I made a small change and challenged the loudest voice in the room. Today, I utilized the privilege that I have been born into and challenged tacit agreement. Today, I did not change the conversation by discussing the weather, but rather by raising my voice in peaceful defiance. 

Today, I made a minute change and quietly hoped for a better tomorrow. 

Can we just STOP now?

If I unfriended everyone on my friend list who's posts I have found irritating lately, I'd have very few friends left. Emcee and the Kitten I find mostly entertaining or thoughtful, but half my friend list seems to have the intellectual capacity of a potato. 

There are some very scary things happening the world right now and we would all do well to slow our rolls a little and spend a little more time thinking and a little less time raising our particular flags. As a nation, I'd like to put us in time out. 

My first political memory is a Republican one. Putting "Reagan Round-Up" stickers on my bike back in '84. I voted for Bush, both times and while there were things I didn't agree with, I never doubted that, even misguided, he was doing everything with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, the best of intentions sometimes don't amount to a hill of beans and as I got older and my world view changed, so did many of my political notions. However, to be honest, I only voted for Obama once. I always liked him, but I was unsure back in '08 if his campaign was absolute and he would be a good leader for the nation or if millions of people were knee deep in the hoopla and not sure what HOPE they were backing. 

Happily, my fears were unfounded and I proudly cast my vote in 2012 and helped turn Indiana blue for the first time in as long as anyone can remember. I like the guy, I like the way he presents himself, I love the way he's handled himself both personally and as a leader. Some of his policies aren't the best, but they are a good and earnest start...and fuck people...we need to start somewhere. 

Doesn't hurt his wife is a badass as well. \

So it BOTHERS me, greatly, that segments of our citizenship feel that they can insult and downright degrade the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You don't have to like him, but you do have to respect him. He is the PRESIDENT, for fucks sake. You don't tell the actual MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD to "go back to Kenya" or wish him to have his daughter raped. You don't tell a 15 year old TEENAGER that her "real parents probably sold her." That is sick and twisted. 

To those people, I say, you are part of the problem. You're in time out. 

Some guy, for some reason we don't fully understand and may not ever fully understand, bought a high powered gun, a shit ton of ammo and felt brazen enough to walk in the middle of a club where people were dancing and kill 50 of them and injury 50 more. The fact that can even happen is seriously fucked up. 

Does it matter if he was a radicalized Muslim or a gay Muslim with a serious faith issue or just a pissed off crazy person? I say, no. It makes no difference, in this case. He was an American citizen, so Donald's whole idea of shutting down our countries doors to Muslims (which may seem like a good idea in theory, but we know how the internment camps turned out and I beg of our nation to not forget our own lessons)wouldn't keep this guy out. He was born in New York. 

The fact that he was a known entity, for whatever reason, to the FBI and there was no cause for pause when he suddenly needed a big gun and a lot of ammo...that's unnerving. Fight me on other things, but know that this is true: No one wakes up one morning, buys a high powered weapon and a ton of ammo that DOESN'T have bad things on his agenda. 

...and I'm tired...tired of the same old arguments from the same old gun owners. 

I say this as girl who spent many of her formative years living in Texas, where virtually EVERYONE was "casually armed". It was quite a shock to my mother at a Junior League meeting once to discover that she was the only un-armed person at the table. 

Guns are not going anywhere. They are not going to outlaw their ownership or demand you turn in your guns...and while I totally feel your "slippery slope" logic...we have to start somewhere. This is a fixable problem, but everyone is going to have to have to have a hand in and stop seeing just where their rights end, but where others' rights begin. You have the right to buy a firearm. I have the right to not get shot by one. 

Yes, criminals don't follow laws. But we have to start somewhere. Purchasing a weapon does not need to have an "instant gratification" element. Slow your roll. 

Assess yourself and realize the only reason to own a gun from the "AK" or "AR" collection is because you want to shoot a whole bunch of things very quickly...or because you think it makes you a little bit of a badass to have one. You are NOT purchasing this gun for your own safety to defend your home front, you're doing it with a delusion of grandeur. Check your cock at the door, you are not taking this gun hunting with the boys. 

I support your right to have your gun on your hip or in your purse or on your person. I did grow up in the south. But the fact that you have it makes me feel no safer in public. It actually does the opposite. I don't know you. I don't know if you're one xxanx away from a breakdown or a former military officer with years of training. I see your gun and (first think "god what a dipshit") think "I hope this guy is stable and doesn't get irate in the drive through...or we are all fucked."

To be completely honest, if your firearm is not accompanied by a uniform of some sort, I promise you, about 50% of the people you see on the street who see your gun, think you are some sort of dork, myself included. Fight me on this all you want...and if it makes you feel better, strap on that pistol, but know that instances where a "good guy with a gun" stops a "bad guy with a gun" are extremely rare. That's why we know about them at all. They are rare enough to be newsworthy. Just ask the guy in Tucson who almost shot the wrong person in the mayhem of a Senator being shot. It's Arizona, people are packin' heat...yet the one guy who tried to be a "good guy with a gun" almost killed an innocent bystander. That's more than a whoops. 

Miss me with your 2nd Amendment argument as well. Let's get some context around the situation and realize that our young nation had just fought to actually be a nation, so having an organized militia was of considerable importance, in case the Brits came back for another round. Times have changed, homeboy...the Brits aren't coming. And while you speak loudly of the "Obama boogey man" sneaking into your gunsafe under the cover of darkness...the "Lib-tards" aren't actually coming for your guns. Here's some shocking news. 

If Obama and his cronies are trying to jump in your left pocket, then the NRA is trying to jump into your right. Make no mistake, the very government you are trying to protect yourself from and you claim to be against, is very controlled by the NRA; an organization I presume you love. 

Governing is about choosing. About finding that place in the middle where everyone is a little uncomfortable and everyone gave up something. It's about me starting to walk your way, you start walking mine...to further quote Diamond Rio, "we'll gain a lot of ground, if we both give a little."

...and we have a lot of ground to gain.