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A World Divided

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On Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was an episode about a planet wanting to join the Federation but could not because a small part of its population was opposed to it. It had to be unanimous, a united planet to be a member.

A united planet.

We who call ourselves citizens of the United States would be noted as liars to say we are united merely as a country these days. Once we got over the shock of it, I’d say we stopped being truly united five or so years after 9/11. Perhaps there was a momentary resurgence of patriotism when Osama Bin Laden was finally taken down, but the bloom fell off that rose pretty quickly.

Since Cain first had his jealous streak and took out Able it has been man’s penchant to divide and hold his cause in favor.

It is one of the oldest strategies in the book of power. And it works, because it plays directly into human nature.  We classify ourselves along political, social, religious, and economic lines, and so on. We used to agree to disagree and, if not fine, at least be tolerant of opposing views. These matters are central to human social existence and tend to resist any attempts at resolution. As a result, each side views the position of the other as a threat to its very existence.  The more we lose sight of our commonalities, the more we drift away from each other and become less human. When we group ourselves away from those outside our immediate groups and regard them with fear and hostility, even when they’ve done nothing, we forget that they are humans too, and that makes us part of the problem.

These intractable conflicts are ones that have continued unresolved and seem stuck in their levels of intensity and destructiveness. People tend to strike out at what is different, what they fear, which is bad when what we fear is each other.
It’s worse when we give in to that fear, give in to that desire to inflict as much harm, physical and psychological, on each other as possible. For so many this constant sense of threat and hostility pervades everyday life and overrides our ability to recognize any shared concerns.

For a nation renowned for embracing the different, some in the U.S. seem to have lost sight of this within our own walls. Where will her huddled masses go if Liberty’s torch grows dim?

I live in New York City, and twice within my lifetime, we’ve been a target. It’s a very sobering thing to have at the back of my mind that the physical symbolism of Liberty, if not all she stands for, could be blown out by force?

And considering the current clime…

So many nations flexing power with malice, not peace. We as a people seem to be doing more and more of separating ourselves from each other than coming together. 

Countries Currently at War 2026 according to the World Population Review
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-currently-at-war

Earth would never be admitted as a member of the United Federation of Planets as we stand now.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 7 – Two Writing Teachers

 

Articulate This

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I’m in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Two of the GPs are out, and there’s an understandable delay. I’m not happy, but being retired has its advantages. I had not packed my day chock-full of All The Things To Be Done On My One Off. I’m not stressed and have time. My doctor is in the office, and I absolutely do not wish to reschedule until next month or possibly longer, so I wait.

A patient is making his displeasure at the delay known to the nurses at reception. As in, I can hear his complaints over The Hu (a Mongolian folk metal band), over my iPod (yes, I still use my iPod). A woman sitting near me and I give each other the “Oh, you hear him too, huh?” empathic smile that all who have gone through such before have, and strike up a conversation. I am a born-and-bred New Yorker; she is a transplant from another state, having lived here for less than two years.  We touch on television and learn that we both have a penchant for period dramas. We spent a few minutes on classic books, version the Hollywood interpretations, and that’s when it happened…

She shakes her head, “Wow…”
“What?” I ask.
“You. The way you speak… You’re well read and very artic…”

I am going to gather she stopped short at that point, less because her brain kicked in and more because I’m sure my expression went from amicable to apoplectic by the second syllable of the classic “A” word used with well-spoken blacks: Articulate.

Was it because I did not interject “like” and/or “you know” every fifth word or so? Perhaps it was my lack of “neck roll”? I do not know. However, I’m pretty sure I popped a capillary or two in my efforts to restrain my agitation at hearing this.

Worse, I am hearing it from someone less than 30 years of age. Someone who assuredly should know better, coming from a – not major, but a metropolis. Geographical differences aside, clearly Barack and Michelle Obama, Kamal Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Maxine Waters are ethnic flukes, as though they do not speak the same English spoken by the majority of people in this country.

“I mean, I mean….” She starts the familiar back-peddle seen often when people are caught hoisted on their own petard.

“Oh, I know what it is you meant.” I stop the peddling in its tracks. “I don’t know what you were exposed to in (name of city redacted to not paint all of its denizens with the broad brush of ignorance), that gave you such preconceived notions, but for the record, it is not a compliment to be surprised, or worse, impressed, that a person of color can speak well as though it is such a foreign concept. And, it is incredibly condescending and patronizing to think we should feel complimented that it’s noticed and meets your unasked-for approval.”

Suffice it to say, the conversation ended there. It was just as well, for my name was called to see my GP not too long after.

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is: some of us (Black people) become a little perturbed when people call out our articulateness.

It perpetuates the stereotypes that Blacks speak mostly in slang, in African-American Vernacular (aka Ebonics), or in anything other than standardized English. It is also divisive, a separating of us into an “us” and “them”. It is the stereotype that is perpetuated even within less affluent black communities every time a well-spoken black person is accused of “talking white”. The stereotype that equates articulate styles of speech as belonging to “Caucasian” rather than belonging to “intelligence”, as though one was still the exclusive dominion of the other. Blacks do not assume every white person speaks with a major in English, so why is it still a thing of note to some when encountering those of us who have a more extensive use of verbiage, diction, and enunciation?

Here we are in 2036 Anno Domini (CE for those who prefer the secular nomenclature), and it’s an aggrievance that yes, this is still a conversation.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 3 – Two Writing Teachers.

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Happiness in the Present

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“Doing what you like is freedom, liking what you do is happiness” 

I hope most have noticed that this is the tagline of this blog. But sometimes it seems like I’ve been so busy chasing the funds to have the former that there’s rarely any time left over to engage in the latter.

And I know I’m not the only one.

We spend so much time getting ready to be happy and not enough actually being happy.

The poor are so busy trying to get money to be rich, because then they will be happy. The working poor, formerly known as the middle class, are so busy trying to keep what money they have while also seeking more to be happy. The rich are so busy trying to prove themselves worthy of having said money to be happy.

Yet how many of them truly are?

Someone once asked the Dalai Lama, what surprised him most about humanity, he answered:

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

The Dalai Lama is very astute in his statement. In the bombardment of information, society, culture and idealism, I sometimes feel we’re slowly become something so homogeneous by silent consensus that we tend to lose that spirit which makes the individual so special. We mute the individual spirit that dares to pursue anything than what the masses have decreed should make us happy, when the masses themselves continually change the definitions.

Another favorite quote of mine: All are born originals: most die as copies.

Too many of us see ourselves through the eyes of others. And those eyes are most likely only viewing what they have been told to look at. When everyone is looking at the same things, is anyone really seeing anything?

Years ago, Android had a series of commercials with the closing tagline: be together, not the same. I think that also works in finding your own sustained happiness.

Life can be this amazing place full of light, happiness and serenity. Or it can be a dark place, full of drama and fear. It’s life, it holds all of these possibilities, but it’s up to you to choose what’s possible for yourself. And you must choose this for yourself everyday, sometimes several times a day.

When it comes down to the basics, we all want a happy future, but life can be a beautiful thing right here, right now, in the present; we just have to take a moment to keep reminding ourselves.

It’s Tuesday, let’s see how others are slicing it it, this Day 2 of the challenge:

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 2 – Two Writing Teachers

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Listen and ‘Remember, Remember, Remember…’

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"You ever just listen to a song and remember exactly how life used to be when you first heard it." @grumpyoldgits

A friend posted the above quote on Facebook. I felt it immediately, but I suspect not in the way it was intended. I won’t say certain songs make me want to reminisce about how ‘life used to be’, as the quote implies, because plenty of songs came out during chunks of life I would rather not want to remember, but the way the songs themselves made me feel. The songs that can transport me right back to that feeling upon hearing the first note.

The songs that hit me as hard today as when I first heard them.

I don’t just mean the songs that make me smile or want to move: Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, Beastie Boys “Jump Around”, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”, Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”, The Champs’ “Tequila”, Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper Delight”, Madonna’s “Vogue”, “Le Vie Bohme” from Rent, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” -yes, you read that correctly, Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft”, Usher’s “Yeah”, “Hair” from the musical Hair, Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”, Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be”, Kelis’ “Milkshake”, Propellerheads/Shirley Bassey “History Repeating”, Nelly’s “Country Grammar” and “Hot in Herre”, Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish/Sir Duke”, Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk”, Hair/Fifth Dimension’s “Aquarius” and as sort of referenced in the title of this post Irene Cara’s “Fame” et al.

I also mean the songs that made me think: Billy Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police”, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”,  H.E.R.’S “I Can’t Breathe”, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message”, Linkin Park’s “Hands Held High”,  Isley Brothers’ “Fight The Power”, Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”, RATM’s “Killing In The Name Of”, Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, John Lennon’s “Imagine” et al. Many are as relevant today as when first released.

And then there are the gut songs. The songs that make me feel some kind of way, it can be love, rage, or something undefined, but oh, I feel them: Foo Fighter’s “I Should Have Known”, Foreigner’s “I Wanna Know What Love Is”, Toni Braxton’s “Unchain My Heart”, The Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice”, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, “The Unforgiven II”, and “Nothing Else Matters”, Fleetwood Mac “Dreams”, Madonna’s “Frozen”, Sondheim/Bernadette Peter’s “As The Days Go By”, Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”, Eva Cassidy’s “Autumn Leaves”, Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Reasons”, “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell, Herb Alpert’s “Rise” – yes, I know it’s an instrumental – but I feel it, Fifth Dimension’s “One Less Bell To Answer”, “Out Here On My Own” from the movie Fame, Commodores’ “Easy”, Lionel Ritchie’s “Still”, Tracy Chapman “Fast Car”, Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds Are Forever” and “If You Go Away”, Pink’s “Conversations with My 10 Year Old Self”, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, Sugarland “Stay”, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and “This Is My December”, Bruce Springsteen, “41 Shots”, Drowning Pool “Bodies”, Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and so many others. And as my former work wife knows, there is the drum solo heard ‘round the world, Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”

Also, I was a literal child for quite a few of the songs listed. So older songs like “Stairway to Heaven”, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, and “Strange Fruit” – I refer to how they hit and then stayed with me when I was old enough/mature enough to get their full meanings.

None of the above is in any order of preference and by no means a complete list of my genre-hopping polyjamorous tendencies, just a smidgen of what immediately popped into my head as I was writing this. And honestly, mini theatre kid that I am, I could probably do this same post solely with theatre songs, but more than half of Steven Sondheim’s Broadway catalog would be listed, because damn, that man knew how to write a lyric.

Still, all of the songs above have a certain something that moves ME to want to stop whatever I’m doing and be in the moment of that feeling. WMYMV [what moves you may vary].

Let’s see what’s moving others this Tuesday…

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Office Whoa-s

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Client 09:51-email: Raivenne, it’s not working. HELP?

Me 09:56-email: Please give me a call. No idea what you’re speaking of.

[While waiting for email reply, I look through files, begin to see the problem. Start an email response.]

Client 10:21-email: Will do. Are you free now? Here is the issue.

Me 10:22-email: Yes. Call me.

[While waiting for call, I continue look through their content on the back end and discover a series of issues that I presume are the reason for the request for help and continue typing mostly to have talking points at hand when they eventually call.]

One of the things I inform students during training, is that our application identifies them by name, date, and time, down to the seconds, when an action happens. Do not waste time telling me or any one on my team that you did not do something, because the application will, as I call it, rat you out. I do not contact you if I do not already know that it was you (royal you in this case as it involves more than one person), that did it. I already know if I do not cauterize this at the source now, it will drag out unnecessarily, so I aim for a preemptive strike.

My talking points become a diplomatic full out email, complete with screenshots, timestamps, and step-by-step breakdowns to explain:

– how ya’ll done effed up

– when ya’ll done effed up

– when ya’ll attempted to cover up the eff up which then

– created a bigger eff up, so

– here’s how to fix your eff up and ‘cause summa ya’ll clearly didn’t listen the first time I tol’ ya’ll ‘bout effin’ dis up

– here’s yet another step-by-step detail of the ideal scenario on how not to eff dis up again.

And yes, I went uber petty and purposely CCed all parties involved in the shenanigans, to avoid the backend I thought he/she/they -blame the person not in the email- I knew would happen without it. I spent nearly an hour and a half crafting that email, being excruciatingly detailed, because office diplomacy of politely, but emphatically, saying ya’ll some stoopid Keystone Cops sonsabeeches and we, meaning me, ain’t gots time fo’ ya’ll ‘peatin’ the same ol’ dumb ass ish ova’ and ova’ is wordy as fuck.

I ended the tirade with “Had the ideally happened this entire “conversation” would not be needed.”

As always when I go off the email-rails, I have a second, and often third, pair of eyes go over things because I sometimes forget to camouflage my natural penchant to snark my Rubenesque African American callipygian to near non-existence.

“Oooh, you are pissed!” “Damn did you at least send lube first?” were my colleagues response before I was allowed to click send.

Alas, because I am a cunning philologist (hah! Not the word you thought I would use here was it?), I am also aware that despite my best efforts to curtail my wont for multisyllabic linguistics in professional diatribes, my email diplomacy ofttimes necessitates the employment of verbiage translations. I should mention, in that one hour and a half span of composing said email and writing this slice – I am still awaiting that promised call. Thus, I am not in expectation of immediacy in response to my correspondence.

I think I will pull a Cheshire Cat now – smile and wave and disappear…

Let’s see how others are smiling and waving it out this Tuesday…

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Personal Falling

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I am aware it is still Summer. I am the person who emphatically espouses yearly that my birthday is officially in the summer, regardless that the vernal equinox follows only a couple of days later. So believe me, I well aware it is still Summer.

That being said, it’s officially Virgo season and this week I have noticed my personal markers for the coming season have begun:

  • Waking up to darkness again at 5 in the morning.
  • Being fully dark again by 9pm
  • Enough leaves have begun to descend that the groundskeepers around my job are using already using leaf blowers to clean.
  • I haven’t seen so many people wearing long sleeves since early May.
  • Last night I closed a window because the cross breeze was a bit too cool to take.

I know we still have a month of regular summer, and there’s also Autummer* to go through later in the fall season. But these past few overly humid Canicular days are starting to get to me.

Come on sweater weather!!

*Autummer – what I dub what was once known as Indian Summer, which is no longer used out of respect to Native Americans. It is that brief, yet lovely, time of year mid-to late autumn, here in the US and Europe where after it starts to feel noticeably cold, it suddenly warms up for a few days.  It is what summer should be: regular length days and acceptable heat, just before Jack Frost slips his fingers in to give a hint of what’s coming next.

Let’s see how others are chilling it out this Tuesday…

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On Parade in the AM

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7:27am my desk: I am standing at my keyboard going through my usual morning routine as I log in. My earbuds are in, my iPod has RATM blasting because while my body is on the job, the rest of me is still asleep in bed. A colleague passing by sees my very enthusiastic headbanging, looks at me like the very insane person I am, and pronounces “No, it’s too early. No.”

Because she arrived at a perfect moment in the song – I look at her, smile benignly and when the beat drops in my ears a moment later, I raise both hands high – full on rock fingers gesticulating – face scrunched befitting the song’s mood and reply in her face with “🎵Come with it now! 🎶“

She understandably blinks at my unexpected response then shakes her head laughing clearly knowing the song by that one lyric sung even if she can’t hear it herself. “Nope, MUCH too early for that.”

“Hey, I just walked in I’m not awake yet,” I laugh as she walks away while I head-bang on and continue with my checks.

“Have you tried coke?” she asks as she reaches the corner.

And because I really am not quite awake yet, therefore honestly thinking about the caffeine boost, I hear a fading disembodied voice around a corner call out “And I don’t mean the stuff in the can.”

I settled for my usual morning IV infusion of C25H28N6O7, and C12H22O11, aka coffee black 20oz with 2 tsp sugar; but now all I can imagine is a series of horned Red Bull cans carrying banners as they follow a white powdered line down the street stomping in tune to RATM.

[For those not into such – RATM is Rage Against The Machine, an American Rock band and their song I reference is the very loud and very thrashing Bulls On Parade.]

Let’s see how others are rocking and slicing out this Tuesday…

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For The Last Time

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*SIGH* I’m in a mood today…

It’s funny what things you remember…

“I didn’t give you permission to go anywhere, young lady.” Me – 40 to a 71 year old. She left anyway.

“Don’t give me that look! If you don’t make it to fifty, whenever I catch up with you, I’m gonna make you SO sorry you married me!” He didn’t – jury is still out on whether I keep my end of the bargain – only time will tell.

“Man, I haven’t won a pot in two years. You fixing the scores or something. At least let a sista win a box or two, cuz! Or else!” Never won another pot or a box at least not in that specific football pool.

“Oh please! You better come to my birthday this year or I am not going to any of yours ever again!” As of last Saturday I know she won’t make it. The rest is now a given…

Because of the latest one I am remembering how I was just me, being me, leaving them laughing. Not knowing they would soon be leaving me, reminiscing on this earthly plane.

It is a silver lining. A faint silver lining. One feeling a little tarnished right now.

It’s funny what things you remember…it’s tragic what things you wish you could forget.

Let’s see how others are slicing it out this Tuesday…

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Some SOL Company

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When I encounter friends, colleagues, countrymen, hell perfect strangers, who were raised with civility and make the mistake of asking “How are you?” one would presume being a woman raised by Sothern Belles one would think I was equally brought up with such manners that would have me politely respond with some variant of “I’m fine.”

But nah, my NYC mouth blithely shuts down all such social convention as I almost always reply with “Insane as usual. And you?” {Hey at least I’m housed trained enough to ask – mostly I’m tired of my southern Grandma reaching up from beyond to Gibbs SlapTM me upside the head – but I digress.] This is almost always met with a chuckle that ranges from exaggerated eyerolls [those that know me very well], through amused head shaking [those that know me somewhat], to nervous smiles [those who are not entirely sure if I’m joking].

Today I took it one step further. Having had the above exchange with a colleague in the ladies earlier, I pass her office a while later.

“You know how I said that I was insane?”

She knows me just well enough that she starts smiling, “Yeah?”

“I can prove it….”

The smile turns into a I already regret letting her in grin, “How?”

“Please explain to me why I cannot get the bass line, not the melody, not the lyrics, but specifically the dang bass line to DuckTales out of my damn head?”

She blinks a few times getting the reference and asks the pertinent question: “When is the last time you’ve even seen DuckTales?”

“My youngest is thirty-eight, so-decades!”

For those who don’t know DuckTales is an animated TV series produced by Disney. The original cartoon series premiered in the late-80s and ran for several years. The show featured Scrooge McDuck, his three grandnephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie (yes, the nephews of Disney’s Donald Duck), and others, on various adventures. It was part of the afternoon line-up my boys watched after school. Thus, I was not exactly kidding when I said decades.

It had a very catchy theme song, with a pretty groovy bass line, which I heard five days a week for several years. And for some reason it was now stuck in my bird brain.

After stating she how she concurred with my self-assessment, I was informed I was SOL because she couldn’t help me and laughingly ordered me to get away from her immediately before I infected her. Another colleague was passing and made the mistake of inquiring what shenanigans were I causing now. I do have a slight reputation for such – slight.

Long story-short: going by my burning ears, there are at least five colleagues cussin’ out my name for the bass line likely still running through their minds.

I mean we all know adage Misery loves… Well I’ve had that miserable bass line in my head most of the day – so guess who’s joining me? For those of you reading this who know theme in question, and now are equally infected, I would say I’m sorry, but we’d all know I’d be lying.

That SOL in the title doesn’t stand for Slice of Life today.

Let’s see how others are slicing it out this Tuesday…

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Glad I Didn’t Wait…

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  1. I love jalapenos and had them in my salad for dinner. Uncouth and greedy idiot I am, did not use utensils, but fingers to consume said jalapenos.

  2. On way to the loo to wash my grubby jalapeno scented talons, I run into a friend I have not seen in a while who was leaving the restaurant. My mind said wash your hands it can wait. But my mouth had already called out to her. No choice now but to have the chat I garnered her attention for in the first place.

  3. Typical of me, hands forgotten, the chat devolves into silly conversation that soon has me wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. People – please review 1 and 2 above. It was a bit not good as I am quickly shown the error of my ways. Eyes now beginning to sting I hear a familiar motor sound approaching me.

  4. Another patron in a motorized chair is coming down the hall. When I politely step out the way as she passes -I don’t always apply them, but Grandmama taught me manners(!)-, I hear another very familiar sound, that is soon followed by cold wetness through my blouse.

  5. I turn in surprise realizing I backed into the automated hand sanitizer dispenser, that did its job and dispensed itself – on my back. The friend I was conversing with saw the stain and lost it, making a reference to a scene in the James Spader/Maggie Gyllenhaal movie “Secretary”. It was a reference I got, which sent me completely over the giggle edge. [Either you know the scene or you do not, I am NOT explaining it. Just know that it is sexual in nature and let your very dirty mind -if you have one- extrapolate from there.] I make it to the ladies room at last and she goes on her way.

  6. Now imagine walking into the ladies room to find a female at the sink, make-up ruined, seemingly trying not to cry while tears stream down her face, holding copious amounts of paper towels trying to blot dry a blouse spotted with suspicious looking stains down her back, without taking it off. Only when I saw the horror stricken look on her face as she slowly approached me in genuine concern and gently asked asked if I wanted to call someone did I get the enormity of how it looked from an unknowing eye.

    And me, being me, continue to be a child at a most inappropriate time, told her “Mr. E. Edward Grey!” referencing James Spader’s character in the above mentioned “Secretary.”

  7. Still giggling like the twelve-year-old I am mentally, I finally finished washing my hands and face as I assured her the only assault was from the automated hand sanitizer dispenser whose motion sensor I had accidentally set off. Much to the woman’s relief, and momentary blush, I also explained about the movie and that I refer to the Spader character as the original Mr. Grey, where I believe the author of the 50 Shades series of books/movies may have taken the surname inspiration.

  8. I had to wear my blazer with paper towels between my blouse and my back until the wet spots dried. But so worth the unexpected laughter. Yes, speaking to the my friend, instead of immediately washing my hands, could have waited, but I’m glad I didn’t.


    I also now have a mental bet with myself that the woman from the ladies room will be watching a certain movie before the week is out. It’s a Schrodinger’s bet, but I’ll wager it’s in my favor.

    And since I’m still in a puerile mood, I feel obligated to remind you dear readers May is National Masturbation Month – handle that information however you will.

Let’s see how others are slicing it out this first Tuesday in the merry, merry month of May…

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