But Call Me Betsy

How hard can it be to write a blog post? Shouldn't be that hard. I'm reading books, we just finished watching season one of Happy Valley, we saw Hidden Figure s (quick review: a well-executed, sanitized version of racism as presented by Hallmark wherein Kevin Coster breaks down the barriers by chopping a "colored" restroom sign down), and the dog keeps doing cute things. BUT. What I'm most preoccupied by leaves me inarticulate. Every day, I read check in with The Washington Post and The New York Times (I have digital subscriptions to both now because it has suddenly become very important to me to support journalism with integrity), and the headlines are always about some new and outrageous thing DT has done, or said, or mandated or some white crazy inexperienced billionaire he's appointed, or some bullshit he's tweeted, alternately accusing President Obama of wire-tapping Trump Tower or insulting Arnold Schwarzenegger for quitting The Apprentice , o...

How about a short story called, "Whatever happened to him?" That's what I wonder about the exes who don't appear on Facebook and can't be found anywhere. This one today was someone I dated for a few months while I was working at DePaul Law School in Chicago. He was a law student--handsome,with a shaved head and bright blue eyes. Freckles, and a raspy voice. When his hair started to grow in, it was this strange blond/gray color. He had been a philosophy major in college and there was some mystery surrounding his dad--I think his dad died when N. was eight or ten, and then he also claimed to have survived cancer in college though was never specific about what kind of cancer that was. I do not think it was testicular, if memory serves. He lived in a garden apartment with very little furniture, possibly an unfriendly cat, and had books stacked up in towers against the walls. He would alternate between being super weird and mean (verbally threatening and saying thi...

We are learning that Donald Trump is in collusion with Russia and has agreed to give Putin sanctions in return for leaking negative information about Clinton.  I hope his fall is swift and not graceful. Filled with non-grace. It feels like what happened is that someone took a community theater show produced by amateur actors and a director who has a full time job as an office manager, and producers who have supported the wine and cheese art gallery show in downtown Clearwater, and you said to all of these people, You open on Broadway in two weeks! And the cast is so excited and believe in themselves and think it can't really be that hard to create a Broadway show, they've all learned lines before, they know about the prop room and they will get a set built because they're going to hire the lead character's uncle Frank who has a workshop in his garage. And the costumes...Well, we'll have Tim's teenage son sketch up the costumes, he's a little weird, a lit...

I missed last week, but my  guess is that maybe two of the black girls went home. Chris lets them know there will be no rose ceremony tonight, but Corinne has a rose for possibly riding Nick while traveling on a hot air balloon. The women are scared and their hearts are beating very fast. This is BBC or whatever channel this is trying to create drama where none exists. He wears a hounds tooth suit and looks a bit like a young Sherlock Holmes. First rose goes to Christina. Second rose goes to Raven, with the very high forehead and fake accent. Third rose goes to Vanessa who has put him in his place once or twice. Fourth rose goes to Danielle who I like the most because of her perfectly placed birthmark. Jasmine gets the fifth rose. Ladies and Nick, this is the final rose. It goes to Whitney. I was wrong two black girls are going home tonight, alongside one blond and the girl who was like one of the guys (Alexis, who says how much it sucks and who also asked him to celebrate ...

Enough with that feminist stuff, let's watch a show focused on one man choosing a wife among a bunch of women who must pretend to be in love with him. Rose ceremony time as the women all gang up on Corinne, who is taking a nap. They should mesh this show with Intervention , because a lot of the bad stuff that happens is a result of drinking 15 gallons of wine before 10 a.m. Nick gives a speech telling the women to continue to express whatever is on their minds. First rose goes to Raven, with the raven colored hair. Second rose goes to Taylor, also with the dark hair. Third rose goes to Quimby? She will of course accept this rose. Fourth rose goes to Christine. He definitely likes dark haired women. Fifth rose goes to Chastine or Justine. Sixth rose goes to Alexis, the goofy one. He's keeping her for fun times. Seventh rose goes to Astrid, who is about to faint from not eating for six days in a row. Eighth rose goes to Danielle, the only blond and the only adult....

One thing I learned at the march is that there is no one type who attended. I expected to see the stereotypical angry feminist (work boots, no make-up, fist in the air) or the stereotypical hippie activist (dreds, pink glitter, hemp hat) or the stereotypical professional organizer (bullhorn, buttons, chants on a sheet of paper). Those types were there, but so were the not-expected types. It was everyone you can imagine. It was a buttoned up shirt wearing white guy in his mid-fifties and his suburban looking wife. It was a mass of slow moving older women with canes and pink hats. It was college-age frat boy-looking guys with red Trump hats that read "America is great." It was Native Americans in full dress, little boys in Superman capes, beautiful New Jersey-black haired girls in perfect red lipstick holding signs that said "Unity, Peace, Equality." It was black men, black woman, same sex couples, families with their kids, mothers and their daughters, a cluster ...

Somehow, I've managed to have a lot of opinions about things without ever taking an real action to support them. I voice my thoughts, but generally only to people who tend to agree with me. Bryan Stevenson, the head of the Equal Justice Initiative, came to talk to Rider and he said a lot of things that make sense to me. The two that relate to this march: be willing to do uncomfortable things and get proximate to the problem.  There's nothing too uncomfortable about the march--though we have to be at the bus at 5:30 a.m.--and the weather is supposed to be good. Many people from my work will be there, as will several of my girlfriends (Liz, Jodi) and I'm certain the walk itself will be manageable. I have some anxiety about some nut shooting everyone, but that's unlikely. In terms of getting close to the problem, it means that we go to DC the day after Trump is inaugurated and illustrate that he and his ultra conservative inner circle should not ignore half of the pop...