Saturday, September 29, 2018

Experiences that don't actually happen to you




I've been tuning into the hearings lately and I keep having two recurring memories that are DEFINITELY skewing my perspective of MY TAKE on what's going down.

Here is the deal.  This entire saga is completely bipartisan.  Any way you look at it.

We all feel like we want to feel based on the testimony from both parties, with just a PINCH of our own political beliefs.  I am not a political person and I normally shy away from either a political or religious debate.  That being said.  This is different.  This feels PERSONAL.

I have no AGENDA other than to give a human perspective to this very heated political debate.



Here is how I feel, and I will give you some anecdotes and situations along the way so that you may empathize with the conclusions I have come to.

I was never raped.  Nor was I ever sexually assaulted.  Thank God.  I did, however, volunteer at the Rape Crisis Center during college.

Contrary to popular belief, if you know my personality, you would assume that I was a major player in high school and college.

Writing that just made me giggle.

My point is that I think that because you are outgoing and raw at times, that you are sexually active. 

I was a MAJOR virgin queen before I met Brad.  I guess his obvious virulence changed all that.  But, for some reason it was always a fear of mine that I would get raped before I lost my virginity and truly even after that. 

I don't know where this fear came from - maybe it was a combination of my Catholic upbringing and my Mom's insistence that she was a virgin on her wedding night.  My brother was born nine months to the day of their wedding, so once I was old enough to do the math, I realized she was a liar, but STILL.

In undergrad and graduate school, I volunteered for the Rape Crisis Center.  You went through a weekend long training and then you were assigned 12 hour shifts when the center was closed where you would be "on call" to answer any calls that came in from "clients" during that time.

We were taught as counselors that there are three rapes after an assault - the crime, the evidence collection and the cross examination if it ever went to court.  Rapes were notoriously hard to prosecute and sexual assault was just downright impossible.

You were assigned either the night or weekend shift a few times per week.  I usually took weeknights, but like any job, they would schedule you as they needed you.  I don't know WHY I am remembering what I am remembering but I guess it has been residing in my "brain stem".

Mostly, I would get young girls or women who needed to talk out experiences they had had, involving RAPE or SEXUAL ASSAULT, that had happened weeks or decades ago.

They were all the same.  Terrified to admit it really happened. That was a common theme.  But once the flood gates opened, they remembered every sordid detail.  EVERY FUCKING DETAIL of the RAPE and it's aftermath.

They would often describe how they left their body, both during the act and after, as if it were happening to someone else.

But they could tell you the smell and the other tactile parts as if it were happening in real time.

So let's switch gears to my OTHER recurring memory in my sorority house. 

There was a group of us that used to all do our homework and projects in the dining room on the weekends and whenever there wasn't a meal about to be served. 

We had these expansive floor to ceiling windows on all sides of the dining room and we would work together on our various majors and bullshit.

I was a Senior and there was this Sophomore in the house that I was particularly fond of.  My mom made me live in the house for three years so that she just had "one bill" to pay so I was in a house at time with 18-year-olds when I was 21.

There was a world of difference between us, but there were some underclassmen that I just ADORED and she was one of them.  I can only describe her as a hippie that lit up every room.

She was short and gorgeous and kind and smart and on this fine Sunday afternoon, confiding.

She was upset because a boy that was being nominated for Class President had tried to rape her at a frat party when she was a Freshman.

It was just the two of us in that big room, she was working on an Art project and I was doing some phantom advertising campaign for a pregnancy test that no one in my class would understand.  I could have picked ANY product or service in the universe and I was working on a story board for a commercial where (and hand drawn might I add) a couple who did NOT want a baby who was taking a pregnancy test and they were relieved so that they could resume their AWESOME childless lives.

At least I had them married, right?  Saturday Night Live would spoof this very same scenario years later, using casual daters, but at least I was ahead of my time.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-pty-pty_speedtest&hsimp=yhs-pty_speedtest&hspart=pty&p=snl+pregnancy+test+commercial#id=1&vid=1033c1f46ef4add5a168d52e4c5f700e&action=click

I got a C from my perplexed Octogenarian professor.

Anyway, we are alone in the late afternoon in the dining room, she at a large table all to herself, and me, with a table catty corner to hers toward the front.

"I'm just upset," she said, as we leaned over our respective dining tables with the chairs stacked up neatly in the corner. "I KNOW what I should do, but who will believe me?  I never thought he would make it this far.  I've watched him ascend through the ranks, and I have kept quiet, but now he might be PRESIDENT and he should not be making decisions for the rest of us, when he is a dirtbag.  It has been making me SICK."

She proceeded to tell me how she was at a party with a bunch of people and they were drinking and playing pool and somehow she and the Presidential candidate were alone and he locked the door and forced himself on her and she was saying "NO!" and then she was saved when someone interrupted and knocked on the door which startled him and she got away, unlocked the door and fled the house.

I advised her to do nothing, that the ODDS were against her.  I was scared.  Scared that she would ruin her life and he would prevail anyway.  The ol' boy network in Lexington was a strong one.

She agreed, and did nothing and I do not remember if he became President or not but my takeaway is  that I gave her shitty advice.  I should have promised to be her ride or die, her chief advertising counsel, instead of her non-I'm just trying to graduate friend.  She reached out to me and instead of being a support system and a champion, I was complicit and a coward.

She, now, is an artist in New York City and we follow each other on Insta.  I don't know if she reads this blog or not, but if she, YOU are, consider it an apology.  I wish I had been stronger and more mature and a better friend.

Back to The Rape Crisis Center.  So, it was pretty RARE that during your shift you would have to meet a client at the hospital to act as a representative for a RAPE victim because NO ONE EVER REPORTED ONE at the time of the assault.  However, one night on my shift, I was called to act as a liaison from our center to a victim while she waited for backup from family or friends.

I do not remember any other clients but HER and this is what I remember.

She was a prostitute.  The smell was unbearable.  I held her hand while they performed the exam.  She was inconsolable. I vomited.  She was treated like shit by the cops taking her statement.  The medical team was amazing and kind and respectful.  She acted EXACTLY like the women who relived their RAPE to me on the phone.  And no one ever came to be with her besides me.

I guess just watching Dr. Ford testify was enough to conjure up these memories.  So much so, that I cannot stop thinking about the juxtaposition of these two events in my life and my recollections and feelings associated with not only those events but my REACTION to those events.

There is a whole "I Believe Her" movement going on today and so do I.  People are saying that it DID happen, just not as she remembers it, specifically relating to the aggressor.

It IS unusual that a perp would exhibit this behavior in adolescence and not adulthood.  Studies support that.  I get it.

But, in my teeny tiny experience as a Rape Crisis Center counselor a billion years ago, she is not only telling the truth but she is risking EVARYTHING that she has accomplished and transcended by drudging up her past. 

During the hearings, at best she seems unstable, but this is just a snapshot on the national stage of who she is and what her life is like. I would think that I would appear emotional and stricken if I had to admit to a sexual assault 30 years ago.

Again, she is risking EVERYTHING.  She may have been an unknowing cog in the political machine, and I am talking Democrats here, but in my experience, she is telling the truth.  And her recollection is accurate.

I just wish I had had the courage to support my young sorority sister when she confided in me, but I didn't.  I was thinking about the publicity and the heartache and the repercussions of standing up for yourself and not the bigger picture.

It IS a big deal, y'all.  A Supreme Court Justice is for life.  Shouldn't he/she be beyond reproach? I don't care if you have affairs.  Maybe you are in an unhappy marriage.  I would LOVE it if you didn't and if you were a family man/woman that kisses babies and nuzzles puppies on the campaign trail and you reveled in every second of it,  yet that is not very realistic, is it?  But the one thing I won't and we shouldn't all tolerate is a sexual predator.  They ruin lives. 

And finally...are there no other candidates?

That is what I thought in the last election.  Have we gotten to the point where it is the lesser of two evils, again?  Only who are the two evils, here, Democrats and Republicans that just confuse the issue to each's own gain?  At the expense of what and who? 

I do not believe that Ford is some means to an end for some political party's gain.  She may be a pawn between the two but it doesn't matter.  The issue and the allegations are real. 

I have been vocal in the past about it being unfair to reach into someone's history and then defining that person by one moment.  This is the exception.  You cannot abuse someone and become a Supreme Court Justice.  You are held to a higher standard and you should be.

If you have gotten away with it in the past, then that's on us.  It has GOT to change now.

Guidance:  Don't watch Fox News.  I had never watched it before last night.  It is pure VITRIOL.  No reporter should have an opinion on it's subject, let alone MOCK it.  It is the reporter's job to RELAY the facts. Point Blank Period.  When did this become a THING for a newscaster to verbally eviscerate a story or specifically it's subject?  I don't know what they are teaching journalism students nowadays, but in ancient times, they just used to squash your creativity, not create media monsters.




Sunday, September 9, 2018

I've been thinkin lately...about this blog

So I really DID Google myself and this GURL came up under Johnna.  Apparently, she and her husband took their 7-month-old on several break-ins recently.  Childcare proved to be more evasive than they are.


Today I was thinking about what I REALLY want out of this blog as I Googled myself for the 45th time and checked the stats on Blogger.com.

I don't have Facebook on my phone anymore, although, I continue to have BIG BOTHER (intentional spelling) send me notifications, which my kids pronounce NAWT-if-fa-KAY-shuns, and I told them it sounds like "Not a vacation" which you NEVER get from Facebook.

I stopped going on it because my middle daughter, we'll call her Mills, wiped my ENTIRE existence off of the iCloud and thus my IPhone.   We are talking contacts, photos, apps, EVERAYTHANG.  So now FB is just on my laptop and I only look in when I post.

Wow.  That made me sound so cool, right?

Not really, you miss out on the stuff on FB that was sweet, like a friend's daughter graduating from Cosmetology school or a buddy's 18-month-old daughter playing piano with her great grandmother.

I just decided I had the opportunity to make some technological choices and Facebook was what the racetrack calls a SCRATCH.

Subsequently, I was infiltrated by the Dark Web, and I became locked out of my password on my computer.  This happened when I tried to set up my wireless printer.

Beware of pop up windows.  Even on LEGIT sites.  It's all about what has already come in the backdoor to your computer that are attached to games and other stuff your kids download that presents the OPPORTUNITY for you to get completely grifted and humiliated.

MeeMaw has had a rough time with the TECHNOLOGAAAAY as of late.

But, it was a new start.

For instance,  I just ADORE getting a random text and I have to respond, "New phone. Who dis?"

Especially when it is the school Principal or nurse.  BOTH have been blowin me up lately.  Just kidding.  Half truths.  For a laugh.  Or IS it?

Who cares?  Right?  That is the conclusion I keep coming to.  The only way this blog can work is if I have no expectations.

Let's be real.  Do I want to go viral?  Do I want sponsorships?  Do I want to end up on the Today Show with Matt Lauer - oh, oops.  I mean, Hoda and Ryan?

Now, I KNOW Hoda and Ryan aren't together on a show.  But they may as well be.  It's all the same.  Keep up.

What do you want out of this?  I thought to myself as I twittered a half nude pic of myself advertising my new and IMPROVED blog.

That's just the thing.  You literally have to give ZERO fucks and then the World will respect you.  But then, what is the cost?

I don't want my family to suffer.  That is the only consequence I foresee for  being MYSELF and for using this to pontificate on all things that irritate or intrigue me while offering my opinion.

My goal is to try and keep it clean, and by that, I mean that I will not directly HURT anyone or DEMEAN them in the process of writing.  I will not use this soapbox in a negative way.  Unless you count the posts where I am irritable and rip on everything I see and hear.

Legacy is too strong a word.  But on a small scale, it is, as long as you keep it small and REAL, right?  As long as you are true to yourself and to your storytelling.  Even if it is all exaggerated and subjective and inappropriate.

I like to write what I know and think and experience and then process.

This blog has "guidance" in the name and I often refer to myself as a Prophet, but let's be REAL, I don't really expect anyone to be anything but entertained.  And if I present a case for something, whether it be the Death Penalty or the most economical eyelash procedures...at the end of the day, I am just shootin' the shit and there is nothing more to it than that.

Sooooo, going forward this blog is going to be named Gratuitous BULLSHIT because that is my mission statement - to BULLSHIT as I please, WHEN I muthafuckin' PLEASE , about ANYTHING I please and you can read it or not read it and react or don't react.  I DON'T CARE.  This is for ME.  It is my outlet.  And if you get anything out of it - a chuckle or the courage to leave your spouse, that's on YOU, beaaatttchhes.

I'm just a vessel.

Anyway, thanks to those of you for sticking with me. Nothing is as it seems anymore, in terms of media, and I guess I wanted to make sure that I was blogging for the right reasons.


Saturday, September 8, 2018

Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams and TAGLINES

This is the Martin Luther King statue Hal and I went to, in DC.  You don't always have to STAND for something.  But when the moment arises.  It's OK.  If I worked for Adidas right now, or if I were a Real Housewife, I would make my tagline, "Stand for something.  Not EVARAYDAY, but when it WARRANTS it.  Point, Blank. Period." 


I haven't been PROPHESIZING on everything going on in the media with the #metoo movement and Trump and fake news and Facebook and suicide survivor shaming and Op Ed's and families being separated during the immigration "process" and everything else that when I look in, makes me sad.

Therefore, I have been just concentrating on what is in front of me.  And then I get tidbits of how the World is going to HELL in a handbasket thru Instagram and my girls and my friends and my husband and then I investigate said tidbit and stop because it is too easy for me to go down the rabbit hole when something intrigues me, and then something like TODAY happens.

I just sat down to watch the U.S. Open.

Up front, I will just say that I LOUUUUVEEE Serena Williams.  So, I, hands down, wanted to watch her win the title and a grand slam, after becoming a Mom.  But, really after she starred in Beyonce's video for "Sorry".  No apologies and no pun intended.  She is the fucking I Ching.  Again, no specifically Asian pun intended.  I just like the term.



Another thing I LOOOUUUVEE are the Japanese.  I've been there twice and have friends there and I was JUST talking about them today with Hallie, before the match, and ALLLLL of my kids want to go there one day because I love the people so much.

(I have a couple of posts in my archive that I know I am supposed to link here but I don't care.  Look it up.  Search Japan or houseguest, I don't know.)

That being said.  I sat down to watch the match and didn't sit the entire time.  Before the match started, the commentator stopped each in the hall where they had to take their Beats (for Serena) and ear buds (for Naomi) out to be interviewed in the white corridor right before they reached the court.

Serena got a glaze over her eyes and said all of the things that Kevin Costner's character tells Tim Robbin's character when he is interviewed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeVca9MwDX8

Naomi, a virtual deer in the headlights was fresh and gracious and awestruck.

They put their headphones back in and proceed to the court.

Serena for all intensive purposes gets SMOKED in the first set. It lasted like 30 minutes.

Then, the proverbial SHIT hits the fan.

In a series of three fail swoops, Serena gets penalized two points and a game because the ref accuses her of being coached on the sidelines, which according to Chris Everett, "happens all the time" with EVARAYONE.

Serena didn't even see it.  Or maybe she did.  But this blog is about the rules applying to SOME and not ALL.

An exchange ensues.

He accuses her and swiftly punishes.  She is surprised and then processes.  She defends herself.  He flexes his Man muscle - the EGO. She is perplexed and shocked that this is happening.  She slams her racquet and he gives her a second strike. She goes at him again, not during the match, but on break, defends her honor.  He penalizes her again.  She is enraged and will not back down.  He gives her opponent a GAME.  She calls in the supervisors. They are stunned,  and yet hog tied as she is as she pleads her case.

The match proceeds, Osaka is stricken, but wins the match fairly easily with one game to go. I felt like she might have given up a game after the penalty, because the Japanese are so accomodating, but I'm not sure.

Serena is balling.  Naomi is balling.  The crowd is booing.  Serena asks them to stop, not ONCE but TWICE and she hugs Naomi and concedes to her like Beyonce did when Solange beat the shit out of Jay Z in the elevator.

End scene.

How FUCKED UP is that?

The World is going to HELL in a handbasket.

Let's switch gears.  I have long LOATHED the male driver when taking my kids to school.  They are so aggressive and they don't think the rules apply to them, but if you bend the rules as a woman, they will literally eviscerate you with their body language and their eyes.

And that's fine.

I just flipped off a good friend of mine, let's just call her Christen, because she was trying to play chicken with me on Northstar, a road riddled with jankily parked cars on each side feeding out to the road my CVS is on.

Side note:  My family and I have been sick with various ailments for a two weeks.  CVS and it's amazaballs Minute Clinic are now considered HOME in my google maps.

To be fair, cause Im DOWN with the #METOO movement, I am an equal opportunity offender and flipped the bird at a Dad, dropping off my kid at the high school.  In my defense, I was dropping off Mills for practice and apparently she took too long and he HONKED AT ME.

My point is, that MALE EGO muscle has a mind of it's own.

But so does the post-partum ego. And by post-partum, I mean any woman who has gotten pregnant or had a period.

Hell Hath No Fury than when you FUCK with Momma.  ESPECIALLY when she is RIGHT.

It's just that "What the fuck is WRONG with you?" reflex.  Am I RIGHT Ladies?

But, then again, you KNOW what is wrong.  He done flexed his ego muscle.  And then it's ALLLL OVER.  There ain't no comin' back from THAT.  He done LOST his MIND.

That is what happened today.  At The Open.  It might as well have been the Billie Jean King Battle of the Sexes all over again.  Only it was a not an equal playing field.  Ya dig?  Let me break it down for you.  He had all the power and he knew it.  Ultimately.  I'm not burning my bra, here, mostly because it would not be a real statement, considering I rarely wear them and I look forward to Fall because I can wear sweatshirts again.

I DID, however,  just get some AMAZING bras from Aerie, American Eagle's lingerie and intimates counterpart, that are soft and lightly padded and basically a sports bra with ZERO sex appeal other than their color that are SOOOOOO comfortable.

My point is, that I would never burn them, but might, if provoked, burn my underwire, heavily padded lace ones.  They don't fit anymore anyway.  Is that still a statement?  I think SO.

AIIIGHT, let's go back to the Match and it's implications.  Serena was NOT gonna put up with his shit.  In the moment, she was the proverbial Tina Turner, when she confronted IKE.  For the last time, that is.

I kept thinking as I watched it, "She can't BELIEVE this is happening." And if you watch it, you will see that in her eyes.

It was genuine DISBELIEF, and then ANGER and then RESOLVE.

She got a HOLD of herself and that is more than I can say for the Ref, that betta get hisself into
witness protection STAT.

Think of the bigger impact, though.  This will make history.  All of it.  And all of the outcomes.

This is NOT the open.  I just Love the pic.


You made history, tonight, Serena and Naomi.  You showed the World what a lady looks like.  We are complicated.  We are emotional.  We are introspective.  And we are resolved.  Right, ladies?

Disclaimer:  I write this as my husband is in Vegas and we have been sick for two weeks and I probably should have some carbs.  But, whatev.  Girls RULE!