Pandemic thoughts

 I am going to ramble as I have to sign in to work in a few moments.  Working from home, while a blessing for someone like me who CAN'T go in ( super high risk)  is also sheer torture for someone like me.  Siting for 9.5 hours a day at my desk in my small kitchen with scant human interaction  is the worst ( thank GOODNESS for Chris and the people I see on my way to the mailbox in the courtyard of my apartment, and yes I wear a mask when I go outside)  I miss my bustling office, with people coming and going and the variety of it all.

It looks like we are back to Square Uno here in California.


There are so many Covidiots who think they don't have to wear a mask. The number of people who think that this is all a worldwide hoax to make the orange menace look bad astounds me. 

So we are stuck.

I posted Macbeth's soliloquy on my facebook page recently and no one commented although it did get a few likes. It resounded with me:


She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.




I am trying to find some hope, some spark that there will be an end to all of this and we can get back to being in one another's company again.  Will we have learned anything from this?  I wonder.  I have learned who  failed math and science in the 8th grade.

Bear with me here

I see I didn't write at all in June.  Covid Depression got the better of me and I found that I could not write anything- except snarky FB posts about Trump, but those don't count

Last night, I had an awesome dream and I really should have written it down.  I was at my friend Donna's place and she was having some kind of salon, where we sat discussing paintings and books and poetry.  One of the poems was one I had written- sorry I can't remember what it was but it was relatively short.  everyone seemed to enjoy it and began discussing what it meant.  They turned to me to explain and I said "what it means to you is what it means.  Don't try to figure out what I meant, but determine what it means to you.  That is what poetry is, you bring your own meaning to it."

I have a degree in English and spent a great deal of time discussing Chaucer and Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens.  We were always trying to tease out the exact intent of the writer.  I wonder if my thought in my dream isn't closer to the mark of study.  What DOES that poem, that painting that play SAY to YOU?  The most fun, for me and I know I'm weird, is talking about art in terms of what emotion it evokes.  When you re-read a novel, you are bringing new insight  to the work, because you have had different experiences. Since the first time you read it, you may have gone somewhere the novel reminds you of, met someone, done something, and that changes and deepens the meaning and experience for you.

I should really talk to my friend Donna about this, she does dream interpretation, but maybe it was a signal to start writing again.  I might try.

Truth, Justice and the American Way

Do you remember the Superman television show?  The opening had an announcer, telling Superman's story and ending with a resounding declaration that he fought for "truth, justice and the American Way" with a picture of George Reeves standing proudly, his cape billowing behind him superimposed over a large waving American Flag  DO you remember?

We could use someone like that right now, especially   the truth and justice part.  The current administration hides EVERYTHING,under the umbrella of "National Secrets"  We need the truth.   The Russian already know everything anyway, its the American people who are running around in the dark.

Speaking of Superman, did you ever consider that he was an illegal alien?  A DACA baby?  Well, think about it.  Before their world is destroyed, his natural parents put him in a spaceship and send him to Earth , where he winds up in a field of a farm in the Mid-west.  He is "adopted" by the farmers who found him and raised as their own.  No one can ever know his TRUE origins, although he himself does and it does come out eventually.  I wonder if, when he crashed landed here, if they would have put him in a cage?  No, probably not,  He was white.

I did get to wondering how the parents knew to send him here, how  it was he looked like he came from this planet, when all the other escapee aliens looked like... aliens.


In any case, on this Saturday morning  I am longing for justice to work the way Superman might have envisioned it.  I wonder if he would punch Bill Barr in the face?

Banned books and authors

So for some reason or another, I was thinking about Ezra Pound.  Heard of him?  Unless you are an English major, probably not.  HECK I was an English major and I'd be hard pressed to recall ANYTHING old Ezra wrote.   The only thing I DO remember is he was a racist asshole and they stopped teaching about him when the truth came out

Fair?  Probably not, but I think he just fell out of favor.  Maybe his works just lost their shine. I probably should see if I can wade through any of his writing before I say much more in his defense.

My mind went over to Laura Ingalls Wilder, who earlier this year had an award named after her  experience a name change  to the Children's Literature Legacy Award.  HER crime?  Repeating in her stories what her MOTHER had said about the Native Americans in her area.  Hear me out here.  SHE is being charged with racism, essentially being punished for relating in her books the moré of the time that is CERTAINLY wrong, but it was what people thought. So, she is being punished, in a sense, for relating history.  Should we stop reading Mark Twain for the same reason?  How about William Faulkner?  Laura was not saying this was right and I think it gives us a talking point with kids who may read it and question it, if they do at all.  Ma was kind of a minor character in the books, they were more about Pa.    Still I think that the presences of Ma's bias- that was really a product of her time and environment and while it is was and always will be WRONG- was something from that time period and we shouldn't erase it and prettify the time by pretending it wasn't there.

I think Laura herself got a bad shake after she died when her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, intimated that SHE, not her mother, was the author of those books which were based on her mother's recollections.  I think Laura and Rose had a bad relationship and Rose was jealous of her mother's success.  I tried to read Rose's book.  It was NOT good, and I  believe totally disproves the "I wrote the Little House Books" claim that Rose made.

But back to my original thought.  Do we separate the dancer from the dance?  Do we talk about works of art independent of the artist?  Or do we dismiss talent because of flawed character?

Obviously. May The 4th Be with you

Star Wars. The original film- smack in the middle of Lucas' opus of nine stories-  defined our generation in many ways.

I think I saw the movie eight or nine times at the drive-in the summer it came out.  I was newly married and the theater was not in our budget, but the drive in was.  We could bring our own snacks for one thing.

Who in that time did not love the story and oooh and ahhh at  what was then  State of the Art special effects.  People these days won't understand it, just as we might not have understood how it felt,when Dorothy opened the door from her sepia toned house onto the expanse of the Munchkin City.

It was magic.

The only "Known" name was Sir Alec Guinness and he came to loathe the film.  You have to feel for the guy;  a HUGE body of work and kids are coming up to him calling him Obi-wan.  That HAS to be demoralizing.


Still the film stays with us, even with how BAD the second trilogy was.  I still have not made it through all of them, I just throw my hands up in exasperation.  BAD casting.  I blame that.  WHO the HELL cast a seven year old as Anakin?   Cute kid but creepy as hell when you think about him and Amadala. 

Now that the trilogy time 3 is over- and I really liked the last film, it tied it up nicely, what next?  Now that Disney has the franchise, they are going to milk that cow for all it is worth.  I suppose the story of Yoda is in the works.  Baby Yoda is cute, scary, but cute.

I am waiting for an all BB8 movie ( Ok it's a running bit around my house, I have several BB8's) 

Still the thought of something that connects us all and guides us in some way if we are open to it is not so bad,  I'm going with that.

April 29

 April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot.  The Wasteland

It's  the end of April and a strange month it has been.

We have been in our homes, silent warriors in a battle for which we seem to be poorly prepared.  If you know me or have read ANY of this blog for the past three plus years, you KNOW how I feel about the current American "leadership", so this morning, I will try to think of other, hopefully more "hopeful " things

On this day, 34 years ago, a guy named Harry Peak "allegedly" snuck into the stacks of ( I believe) the Science and Technology Department ( I might be misremembering what I was told, but go with me here)  and lit the fire that burned the beloved Central Library.  It was horrific, with every fire company in the City responding.  It took a long time before staff could get back in.  

Like any great tragedy, the loss and devastation at Central galvanized certain sections of the public.  Help came from all over and in unusual places.  If politics makes strange bedfellows, so do tragedies.  I Would like to think that the odd partnerships that arose from that time, although fleeting in many cases, gave each person involved a compassion and insight that helps them in their current "day-to-day"

Compassion almost always arises out of tragedy and we become the people we really can be, if the Seven Deadly Sins aren't the thing driving us.  True humanity can spring from this.

Which is where I am making my rather belabored point about today's reality.  This pandemic is, hopefully, temporary.  It had impacted the entire world. I am ashamed that the person in charge of this country seems to think of it as a way to increase whatever the hell it is that is important to HIM ( Money? Check, Status? Check? Braggadocio?  CHECK AND CHECK)  Most of us who can are asking how we can help.

In my small community, people are working with local restaurants to donate meals and other goods.  After this is over, I am GOING to both those places and spending a good deal of cash, tipping staff!  It makes me proud to see how my neighbors are pulling together, except for that winebar owner who is opening his business on Friday.  When it was pointed out that he was breaking the law and not taking things into account regarding the safety of the community, he responded that he did not care.  I hope people stay away in droves.

This will end.  We will be out in the world, social distancing and wearing masks for a while.  "Normal" is a concept we apply to our lives that has no basis in real time.  Let as many of us get back across this as we possibly can.

I'm With Joe! Part 1

I am trying to come up with concise answers to why- other than the OBVIOUS ORANGE ELEPHANT in the room- why we should elect Joe Biden the Next President.

I decided,the best way, would be to go to to Biden's website and take one part of his initial proposals and discuss what they mean to me.  This IS after all MY BLOG and it is all about ME.

Here goes.  Women's  and healthcare issues;

• Giving Americans a new choice, a public health insurance option like Medicare. If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice — and it should cover contraception and respect our constitutional right to choose.

He's right to try to ease healthcare for all into the mix, I think.  So many of us currently have it as part of an employment benefit, it will take a while to untangle it within our contracts.  The thing I Think about is IF we lose our jobs and thereby our benefits, replacement healthcare should become available right away.  I know, I know, this makes it a two tiered system at present, but  I think phases makes sense on some level.  The choice for contraception should NEVER  EVER be your employers right over you.  ( we used to say if men got pregnant, contraception would be a sacrament)

• Lowering costs so that buying medicine and paying medical bills don’t bankrupt families. You shouldn’t have to choose between putting food on the table or filling your prescriptions. 

I thank GOD- and the City of LA- for my healthcare coverage.  Before we got married and my husband did not have coverage, MOST of his money went toward insulin and diabetic supplies to keep him alive.  Not healthy, just alive.  My current costs make a better life possible for him and by extension our family.  When Nixon made Healthcare a Big FOR Profit entity, he sent us down the road, where only the rich can afford it.

• Working to codify Roe v. Wade.

• Abortion is not new, but thanks to Roe v. Wade, it makes it safe for women who must for whatever reason seek that option.  I am SICK of hearing the cavalier response of men who think that ALL women who seek abortion are doing it for birth control.  I had a fetus die, but not expel and it was causing a toxemia. It almost killed me. I was grateful for the women's health clinic who were able to perform the operation that by law at the time, could NOT have been done in the hospital ( this was years ago and I hope, but do not know if the laws are different, but still  I would not be here typing this and my daughter and grandsons would not be here either.  Roe v. Wade protects women from dying as they did when my grandmother was a young woman and desperate women used cayenne pepper laced knitting needles into their uteruses to try to abort.  

• Side note- I think the anti quarantine crowd screaming about the Government Controlling Their BODY is just more than a wee bit ironic.
  
  
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Supporting the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.
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   See above comments.  Being raped is terrible, your mind and your body are assaulted.  Now you have to carry your rapists baby to term and in SOME states give him "parental rights".  People say "oh then to get an abortion, women will claim rape." NOT if they leave Roe V. Wade ALONE!!!!!

• Reducing our unacceptably high maternal mortality rate, which disproportionately affects women of color. 

There is a health crisis in this country and women of color are, as usual on the short end of the stick.  I do not understand it, I have not really looked into the entire situation enough to speak to it in any informed way.  Suffice it to say, we need to look at WHY and DO SOMETHING.  I am tired of hearing we are the best nation in the world and yet HALF of our population is not getting the care some rich people give their poodles...

• Restoring federal funding for Planned Parenthood, including through Medicaid and Title X. 

Ah, Planned Parenthood.  Did you KNOW, or even CARE that MOST of the services PREVENT unplanned pregnancies?  Did you know they do cancer screenings, both cervical and breast? AND they provide contraceptives to those who need them?  Do you KNOW that, or are you too busy listening to people screaming about BABY KILLERS to pay attention to their REAL mission.  Low cost women's healthcare.  Preventing pregnancy is important. Helping women stay healthy?  More so.

So there it is.  I'm on a quest to evaluate what Joe has to say in these beginning stages of his campaign.  I know the ultimate platform from the Democrats will probably adjust this to encompass all sides of the party.    I am ever hopeful  and 

I'M WITH JOE!