Category Archives: The Present

In Love With A Guy – Well, Several Million

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Have I mentioned how much I love I have for the human male species at the moment?

In the past few days I have witnessed, viewed or were directly told / know about…

Witnessed:

A friend and I were window shopping. As we were not in a particular rush, we strolled behind an elderly woman using a walker in front of us. A teenager, apparently not happy at the rate of speed we were moving, huffed and rushed around my friend and I to our left. However, the elderly woman decided to move to the left at the same time.  Somehow the teenager’s foot caught the leg of the walker effectively wrenching it from the woman’s hands and causing her to tumble forward. The only reason she did not fall flat on her face was because my friend and I both grabbed her at the same time, steadying her.  Still it was jarring for her. The teen mouthed off an obscenity as he just shy of threw the walker in our general direction and kept going.

I was about to call out something related to his upbringing, or rather the lack thereof when the teen suddenly dropped to the ground. I looked up and saw a very strong-arm extended straight out. The arm belonged to a gentleman, perhaps in his mid-30’s, who had clotheslined the teen. The man then grabbed the teen by the back of his coat and marched him back towards us. I never saw the man’s mouth move, or heard anything, but he clearly had said something to the teen between dropping him and lifting him. The elderly woman, my friend and I were near flabbergasted as the teen picked-up the walker, stood it properly in from of the elderly woman and apologized to all three of us, but especially the elderly woman. And where one would have expected him to be belligerent or at least sullen, he was actually contrite in his apology.  Once the gentleman let go of the teen’s collar, the teen made another quick apology and walked away. The gentleman gave us a short salute and a nod, which looked almost like tip of a hat, except he wore none and merely walked away without a word to us, not even acknowledging our effusive thanks.

I have no idea if the man and teen knew each other. It was a situation that could have become; really bad, really fast if the teen had chosen to fight. Instead we had a wonderful example that a) chivalry is not dead and b) that there is hope for the future, as at least some can be corrected of the error of their ways, at least in regard to manners.

Viewed on Facebook:

Several companies in an area share the local diner. After some time everyone gets to know the regulars even those that work for other companies. K, a person I am already proud to call a friend was shocked  when a fellow diner not only openly admits to watching child pornography that he “found”. There was no shame in his actions.  K’s co-workers were aghast, but not wanting to confront to issue were trying to exit out of the sickening conversation.   However there was soon regret when the scumbag begins to speak of the little girl in the found cache in terms that should never be used with a child and finds himself slammed into a wall with K’s fist drawn back, ready to deliver what I’m sure would have been one hell of a blow.  In a complete Murphy’s Law move, that would be the moment K’s boss spies the situation.

Long story-short: K still has a job and the police were called on Mr. Scumbag. As I commented on Facebook, we need so many more like K, who will not only be instantly enraged by such, but will take the perpetrator to task and actually Do Something.

Told / know about:

  • The love and kindness of two adult sons dealing with parents who are taking their final bows.
  • Three marriage proposals, two of them very creative (B, it was about time! G and J, well done guys, well done!)
  • One husband’s very enthusiastic reaction upon discovering he’s about to become a father. (So much awe E, so much awwww ♥.)
  • A, you know what and why, much props to you.

So with March, and thus Women’s History Month fast approaching, while we’re still in the month of love and I’m still in such a gregarious mood, I just want to give some love out to all my male friends in particular but spread some love out to the rest of you guys too.

Just try not to make me lose this feeling for you all before the week is out okay? 😉

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Slice of Life Weekly Story Challenge

Slice of Life Weekly Story Challenge

This Onion Reeks

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I woke up this morning still disgusted.

Satirical news site The Onion is known for its quick quips and scathing, if generally tongue in cheek, mockery of current events. The joke officially crossed the line with Oscar nominee, Quvenzhané Wallis of Beasts of the Southern Wild, when someone at the site tweeted “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c***, right?” (The tweeted version was not censored.)

Yes, the tweet was deleted within minutes of being posted. I’m sure it is because they quickly realized it was appalling on so many levels, but I am also guessing the immediate backlash of an outraged public displaying our collective disgust helped.

It is deplorable to no end that an adult had such a nasty thought about a child.  Let alone be so amused by the repugnance, as to tweet it out to the world.  The c-word as an adjective is by and far still considered one of the most vulgar words one can use against a woman. Yet someone at The Onion thought it was okay, in fact funny, to use such against a young child. How young? Nine years old, young; young enough to carry puppy themed purses to the all of the award events to which her talent has been acknowledged, young.

And on the biggest night of her young life, thus far, someone thought it was satirically brilliant to call her the c-word before the world.  I’m sure Wallis’ mother appreciated the astute, rapier-witted humor The Onion had for her child.

Not that any word picking on a child, especially on such a prestigious night, would have been acceptable, but why that word?  Why a word with such sexual connotations? Why against a child? And let’s just throw it out there, why against a Black child?  Because being an adult actress of color in Hollywood is such a cake walk as it is. Let’s give Quvenzhané something to look forward to as she pursues her career.

And As sexist and misogynist as many of Seth McFarland’s jokes were throughout the night, The Onion in one loutish tweet suddenly made him a class act. I will however quote him on one joke he got right regarding Quvenzhané Wallis “You’ll be at the future Oscars when the rest of us are dead.”

Yes, with talent like hers, she will be at many more Oscars and when she finally wins…?

Boy, oh boy, I cannot wait to hear her acceptance speech then!

Orphan

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He was my first Deity, my Lord
All I knew encircled Him
He was the sun and I followed in path
Capitulated to His moods,
Prayed for His mercy
Lived in fear of His wrath

After all he was My Father

But he bowed to a deity
Of his own
That either kept him cold and aloof
or filled with the spirit
of liquid hellish fire
of various proof

We tried to be as quiet as a church
In the middle of the night
But we never found a peace to be still
When I can be whipped awake
At any moment
For some ages old forgotten ill

And where was she you ask
When his fist and my face
Were making connections
How could she save me when she herself
Was in dire need
Of her own protection

Where do I go
This was my shelter
It was all I’ve ever known
I’m taught never to be where I’m not wanted
But what do I do when I’m a child
And where I’m not wanted is home

Well the first time I ran
I was soon returned
For I was very under aged
But I aired laundry in the process
And now both of them
Were enraged

Straight A’s brought not a praise
Chores lack brought not a reproach
His indifference became such
That I would push his buttons
With a cheeky little laugh
The only way to feel his touch

Knowing it was all
A fucked way to feel
Just added to vicious revolution
a penance to pay
For which there was never
an absolution

So when I broke out
And ran away part four
I just started living wild
No one ever said a word
what could they say
I am my father’s child

I’m told I should still love him
Pray for him
And wish him well
I say I do in the mere fact
that I simply
never wished him to hell

Some called me cold
Some called me tough
can handle any shit
But I grew up where
whining didn’t change a thing
so what was the point to it

My mother died first
and she I do miss
She did the best that she could
The next I saw him was to bury him
keeping a promise
he knew I would

He’s been gone
nearly a year
without any impact
I was an orphan
deep in my soul
long before I was in fact

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Mining the Memory–dVerse ~ Poets Pub Meeting The Bar :

Judge Not, Lest Ye…

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Ulanda Williams, a social worker in New York City, fell into a hole when the sidewalk beneath her collapsed last week. Ms. Williams was waiting for a bus and sought shelter under an awning when it began to rain when the ground gave way seconds later. Not falling straight through to the cellar below, she wound up wedged in the hole instead, it took special FDNY equipment to pull her out. She was taken to a hospital and was released the next day.  Ms. Williams was extremely fortunate that her injuries were limited to a broken arm, cuts, scrapes and bruises.  Apparently EMS and FDNY concurred that a smaller person may have died from the drop. It is Ulanda’s size that likely saved her life.

And that (her size), as they say, is the rub.

Granted, in each article I’ve read, the news sources have taken care to mention that upon inspection it was determined by the NYC Department of Buildings that defective steel doors and a loose staircase were partially responsible for the four- by-six-foot slab of concrete’s collapse. However, that part of the story is almost seems a side-note to the main article. Why?

Because in each of the sources that I’ve read, the story was not that a woman nearly fell to her possible death due to a poorly maintained structure. The immediate focus for each of them was that the woman in question was nearly six and a half feet tall and weighed 400 pounds, according to the New York Post. Yes, Ms. Williams is in one word fat. Journalisms presumed penchant for being unbiased (yeah I know), went out the freaking window once her size was known. Don’t believe me?

Here is the lead-in line for the Huffington Post article? “Looks like she got her big break.”

The New York Post’s opening salvo? “Size does matter!”

Oh, and my personal favorite, the first sentence from RoadRunner:  “Whoever says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Ulanda Williams. Williams, who is 32 years old and tips the scales at 400 pounds, claims she owes her life to her trailer-truck physique.”

Oh, look they so funny! So why the hell am I not laughing?

Why is it when something happens to a person of size in the news it becomes all about the fat?

Even in their headlines, headers and web links, the view is already skewed to immediately blame the victim.

*Woman who fell through sidewalk says her ‘girth’ saved her

*http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/too_big_to_fall_Fz8VbWLT2tMkq9gvShHF0J

*Ulanda Williams, 400-lb Woman, Falls Through Sidewalk In New York City

I am not saying that her weight did not contribute to the incident.  My complaint is how the media specifically and the public at large focused mainly on her weight as the culprit. Fellow blogger and someone I’m lucky to call friend, TheNatural54 rightly notes that if this were two men of average size who had fallen, or even a tackle for the Jets or Giants football team (because we know tackles are rarely small guys), the focus would be more on the badly maintained property and not their weight.

I generally do not read the comments on such stories unless I just want to be pissed off and appalled at a bunch of strangers who are never worth the energy spent in the ensuing foul mood that will then color my day.  Unfortunately, because this story came to my attention from various fronts, I wound up reading quite a few comments and yes, I was pissed. From their view it seems the concrete collapsing would never have happened to someone of a smaller size and that just is not accurate. But for the sake of devil’s advocacy let’s just say it really was all about the poundage.  What is it about being over a very subjective number that a person is no longer considered worthy of basic decency and respect anyway?  The mocking bullshit tweeted by Rupert Murdock before issuing a not even half-assed retraction (because it damn sure was not an apology), notwithstanding – the general public is absolutely vicious and loves using the mask of the internet to spew its fat hating vitriol, especially fat women.

If it had been a smaller woman who fell there would be much sympathy for her and anger against the building owners/managers.  Ulanda Williams has cuts, scrapes, bruises and an arm broken in not just one, but two places from her ordeal, why does her weight not entitle her  to such?

Judge not, lest ye…

Don’t Know Why

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I’m sitting here, just sitting here, wrapped in your memory
It’s one so deep in my heart and I really know that I should let it be
But it’s like a sad, sad love song stuck on the same sad, sad refrain
I can’t stop myself from feeling this, even though it’s all just pure pain

But here you are locked within my heart
As if we never said goodbye
And I don’t know why

I admit I didn’t think, I’d make it through those first heartbreak days
But much time has passed and I’ve been just fine since we parted ways
I laugh at our past, brush it away, I got over the things I miss
So I do not understand why today I am so deeply feeling this

Because here you are locked within my spirit
As if we never said goodbye
And I don’t know why

I can’t seem
I can’t seem to excise my heart from you
It’s a struggle
It’s a struggle I thought was through
But your smile, our laughter, all we had
Is right here at easy recall
Oh, we sure were worth the rise, baby
But I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,
No, I just can’t redo that fall

Yet here you are locked within my soul,
As if we never said goodbye
And I just want to cry, feel like I want to die
And I don’t why
No, I don’t know why

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Trying to excise a memory

dVerse ~Poet Pub | OpenLinkNight Week 79

A Stark Raivenne Mad Fat Girl In A Victoria’s Secrets World

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A few of my friends will recognize the following event as it actually happened quite some time ago. However, in the hustle and bustle of this holiday season as I found myself in a very similar situation yet again, I have to tell it here just for the amusement – enjoy!

I walked into a local Victoria’s Secret with my best friend. The music coming through the speakers, greets us with various sultry sounding women with descant reprising the equivalent if not necessarily equal musical verse and chapter of how her man has done her wrong, once more, yet again. Because yes, while I’m alone at home, crying my eyes out into yet another gallon of Rocky Road ice cream and popping chocolate truffles like crack, I will want to be wearing hundred-dollar lingerie – but that’s just me.

Actually, that is a moot point. My best friend is the one buying. I’m just tagging along, as the only thing I can truly wear in this establishment is their cologne. For this bastion of beauty designed to adorn the feminine figure with a tempest of frail looking, but delectable lingerie delights had long ago decided that said feminine figures end at a numerical amount somewhat below the number of the ample mold the dear Lord as blessed upon me.

I touch silver links joining together a triangular swatch of silk I first presumed to be an eye patch before I realized it’s actually a thong. I then make the mistake of catching the eye of one of the pretty little sales girls who then swoops upon me like a hawk upon a tit mouse in a national forest park. My best friend, having endured my “I just want to fuck with folks mood” whenever we enter an establishment such as this, had wisely walked away from me knowing nothing good was going to come of this start of a beautiful friendship.

The sales girl wants to know, of course, if she can help me. Her eyebrow locked in that know-it-all “…because you can’t possibly be here making a purchase for yourself!” arch. I barely bite down the first instinct guiding my tongue to say something sweet like “Gain a hundred pounds, live with it for -oh- twenty or so years and come to a place like this – then ask me that question again”. Instead, because I am already bored, I ask if they carry plus sizes. She perked right up informing me (quite enthusiastically I might add), that they carry sizes all the way up to 38F! I smile sweetly, pick-up the nearest 36F I saw and held it up against my ‘numbers’. It was something akin to measuring golf ball against a baseball – but it was enough to wipe the self-satisfied arch off her brow.

Still, the poor, poor child didn’t take the hint and continued to follow me through the store actually answering what ever inane question popped in to my head. I saw a small black thin band of what appeared to be spandex and stretched it a bit. I was actually surprised, as I held it up for the sales girl to the see just as I was about to place it over my hair.

“When did Vicki’s start carrying headbands?” The look of shock on the sales girls face made me stop in mid-air.
“It’s a bandeau bra not a headband.” You’d think the icy coolness dripping of her voice would have stopped me right? Wrong!
“Oh! You mean like a tube top? Cool! Does it come in plus size?” My voice was dripping with as much saccharine as hers dripped glaciers.

I could hear my best friend losing the battle to stifle a laugh from in front of the cashier as she was well aware that I already knew what it was when I picked the damned thing up. The sales girl however, looked like she wanted to club me. I picked up another eye patch that had star-shaped crystals along the band connecting the material at the waist. Can you say ouch?
“Does this blue eye patch scratch?”
My best friend mercifully, for the sales girl anyway, grabbed me by the arm and snatched me out of there. Hey, I did say I was bored, didn’t I?

You know, I just realized I never did get the answer to that scratch question…

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Slice of Life Weekly Story Challenge

 

 

 

 

Slice of Life Weekly Story Challenge

At All

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I go through the motions, put a smile on my face
Oh I’m just fine to those who call
Only one could pull me from this dark space
But you’re gone,
So I don’t care at all

Every time I think I’m doing better
The pain holds me in tighter thrall
And I know you’d hate that I’m like this
But you’re gone,
And I don’t care at all

I know I should be better off than I am
But I also know I just don’t give a damn

When it’s all about “Tis the season”
I still hang garland from doors and walls
I once loved the holidays without reason
But you’re gone,
So I don’t care at all

El Sol churns out yet another day,
The flowers bloom, then leaves fall
Luna glows oh so marvelous they say
But you’re gone,
And I don’t care at all
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight – Week 76 – Holiday Edition

Start Somewhere

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 I run my days in such haste
No one thought has time to land
Barely having time to care
I must start somewhere

A still pool of water calls
With a dare to simply glance
A tired me shimmers there
I must start somewhere

Natural needs pushed aside
My all to all but me
For the sake of my welfare
I must start somewhere

I free my mind of clutter
Donate a moment to peace
In awe find a moment spare
I will start with prayer

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Today’s Form:  The Kouta

Kouta – KOH-OU-TA (Japanese: little song) A broad classification for several varieties of short songs from traditional to popular which is most often associated with the songs made popular in the pleasure quarters of Edo (old Tokyo) where they were often composed and sung by geisha to the accompaniment of the shamisen.

Kouta has two forms, both four lines. The first has a syllable count of 7-5-7-5, and the other has a count of 7-7-7-5.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight Week: 71

I’ve Got The Look…

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All mothers have a certain look in which their children instinctively comprehend to mean  stop and desist NOW.  I do not care how “no mannered”, “fresh”, “no home-trained” et cetera the children may be, all instinctively understand the most powerful wrath short of the Lord Almighty’s is about to reign down upon their little souls and behinds should they continue with the offending activity.

There are the mothers whose look will only work on their own progeny. There are the mothers in which the look not only works on their children,  but other family members’  children and sometimes the neighbors’ children.  And then there are the mothers. Those special mothers who can utilize the look with such force, that even the children of complete strangers will take heed.  It does not happen often, for I realize I have to be in a certain mood and the child involved must have seriously crossed my invisible line of intolerance for it to be at maximum force, but I am definitely among the last group.

That being said, while all mother are capable of that look, not all mothers have the ability or the desire to use to its full potential and that is a shame. Mothers who cannot put the fear of Mom unto their little darlings at a very early age are soon victimized by the tiny terrors they’ve brought forth unto this world.  I ran into one of those unfortunate types this morning.

I heard the mother already pleading with the child the moment the subway doors opened.

“Sweetie won’t you please sit down.”
“You’re going to hurt yourself!”
“Didn’t I say sit down, Sweetie?”
“You’re going to get a pow-pow.”

The mother did not say “Sweetie” I’m using it  instead of the child’s actual name to protect the little hellion more so than the parent.  I also cringe when parents of young children use cutesy names for things. If you are about to discipline your child, the child should fear it. It is not a “pow-pow” it is a “spanking”.  Children do not fear the cute, especially when spoken in that sing-song sugar coated speak most adults reserve just for young children. Sweetie was not that young and I’m guessing having heard such idle threats all his young life, this child was no exception.

I partially read my book, partially listened to my music and partially watched as I sat across from them.   The little boy climbed up and down from the seat, swung on the pole and yelled back at his mother in turns. Several people were giving the mother the stink eye as Sweetie ran among them nearly causing one passenger to spill her coffee and causing another to trip. Mother would apologize, yell at her child, the child would be still for all of two seconds and then the boy was off again.  Even as the train became crowded he still misbehaved, just contained his mini-mayhem to a smaller area.

At some point a woman who had had enough touched Sweetie on the arm and nicely suggested that perhaps the child should sit. Sweetie turned around, screamed at the woman from the top of his lungs on how she is not his mother and hit the woman with the plastic bat he had in his hands.  The mother grabbed the bat from him and apologized to the woman. This was twenty minutes after I first embarked and now even I had had enough. I took off my ear buds and put my iPod and the book I’m reading in my purse and stood just as Sweetie turned around and started to run.   Right on cue Sweetie accidentally ran into me. He spun around and raised his hand as though to hit me and I’m guessing that was the moment it happened.

The Look had made its appearance.

I raised an eyebrow at him and whatever he was thinking about doing, he rethought it as his hand slowly came down to his side.

“Say ‘I’m sorry. Excuse me.’”  I looked down on him.

“I-I’m sorry, excuse me.” He echoed contritely, taking a step back.  I heard someone exclaim “Daaaamn!” as I pointed at the boy and then at the seat next to his mother. Without another word exchanged, he picked up a toy that was on the floor and sat down close to his mother looking at me penitently.  The mother looked at me balefully as though she was about to say something and I looked at her waiting for it.  She thought better of it also, putting a protective arm around Sweetie as I returned to my seat.  There was a small bout of applause as I sat down, put on my iPod and returned to my book. The man sitting next to me looked from me to the kid and back “How’d you do that? And can you please teach my wife?” I just smiled, shrugged and returned to my reading.

A chapter or so later I realized it was still quiet. When I looked across the aisle from me Sweetie was fast asleep. The mother still looked like she wanted to do me bodily harm, but I was not worried about her. A few stops later, she and Sweetie disembarked.

Someday, someone is going to be there when I give some unfortunate soul “The Look” and have his or her cell phone camera ready to capture the moment. Obviously, I have no idea what I look like when I use this unique expression, but it apparently has some mystical power in it and I would really like to see it for myself.

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Slice of Life Story Challenge

Slice of Life Weekly Story Challenge

Thanks for nothing, Disney & Barney’s

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First Disney and MAC Cosmetics pulled out the cyber liposuction on Disney’s Ursula character for their Venomous Villains line in the spring earlier this year. Now with the help of Barney’s, Disney is out to ruin more childhood memories by transforming their classic icons Mickey, Mini, Daisy and Goofy into modern-day runway models…

Women’s Wear Daily: http://wwd2.wwd.com/eye/design/cartoon-capers-barneys-new-york-the-walt-disney-co-team-up-for-holidays-6202984

They say it’s a team-up, I say it’s just another subconscious gang-up on the psyches of girls and women. Another under the table way of saying taller and skinnier is better. It’s one thing to make Mickey, Minnie and Daisy slimmer. That is annoying enough in it’s own right, but not surprising in this current social climate of the slender body image. What is the deal with making them several inches taller to boot?

If even fictional characters must redesign their bodies to fit some designer’s clothing, what chance do most of us poor humans have of such? Because heaven forbid, those same designers actually design the clothes to fit their bodies, let alone ours.

Come the hell on it’s Mickey, Minnie Goofy and Daisy for Pete’s sake! Changing Ursula was bad enough, she was a secondary character, but this? This is just insane. Do you know why they are iconic characters? Their basic look does not change – that is what makes them icons.

“The standard Minnie Mouse will not look so good in a Lanvin dress.” explains Barneys’ creative director, Dennis Freedman. I call bullshit on that. Did Lanvin and company even try to design for the character’s bodies as they are? We know it can be done in two words: Miss Piggy.

A hot commodity in haute couture, her “weight” may go up and down, but Miss Piggy is always fierce, fabulous and unapologetically fat.   Proof is in the porker that designing for iconic fictional characters, without changing that which makes them iconic,  can be done with something Lanvin and company obviously do not have – imagination.

What’s next? Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren designing pants for Pooh Bear? Barney’s, but especially Disney should be ashamed of themselves. Children’s characters should not be yet another mirror of some unattainable ideal for adults. Children’s characters should be remain just that children’s characters.