How often do I ever post twice in the same day? Never-ish? But I wanted to write this down before I forgot. I read a post about Gay Pride in one of my favorite blogs, Be Gay About It.
I don't dispute anyone else's experience, but here's mine.
I know that among some of our gay friends this will put me squarely in the company of Hitler and Pontious Pilate. I also understand that I may sound like the love child of an unholy union between Roseanne Roseanadana and Andy Rooney.
I don't get gay pride.
Gay pride is right up there with blue-eyed pride, short pride, and funny hair pride. Pride, IMO, should be reserved for things a person actually does. I'm proud of my college education because I achieved it under the influence of three children and one brain injury. I'm proud of my wonderful kids, because I believe I had a hand in their wonderfulness.
I'm not particularly proud of my gayness. I'm not unproud either. It's merely a fact of my being. I didn't do anything to cause it and so I can't take credit for it. I like it, but I'm not any more likely to hang a Gay Pride banner off my house than I am a Right-Handed Presbyopic Pride banner.
I like a nice parade and a street party, and I love any event that causes funnel cakes to happen, so I can appreciate a Gay Pride festival. And gay people are generally fun, in a neurotic, politically correct, every-moment-is-a-potential-diversity-teaching-moment kind of a way. But a nice VultureFest or Pancake Day is just as meaningful as a Gay Pride day...unless a person is hunting her next girlfriend. In that case she's much more likely to find her at Gay Pride Day than at Pancake Day.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
In Which I Find a Reader in an Odd Place
Hi, DMV Lady. Thanks for your help today.
Now that I know you're here, it's going to be your responsibility to let me know if we get any of the Cairo details wrong. Oh, and in case it'll get me any perks with the State, I just want to say: I Heart Illinois.
(Hey, it worked for George Ryan. A girl can dream, can't she?)
Now that I know you're here, it's going to be your responsibility to let me know if we get any of the Cairo details wrong. Oh, and in case it'll get me any perks with the State, I just want to say: I Heart Illinois.
(Hey, it worked for George Ryan. A girl can dream, can't she?)
Friday, January 15, 2010
When Sesame Street Becomes A Communist Plot
The Prop 8 folks made a compelling case for discrimination this week, and provided further proof that Barney hates America:
In cross-examination, Protect Marriage lawyer David Thompson labeled Lamb a "committed liberal," citing his membership in such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women, and his financial contributions to the Public Broadcasting System.
In cross-examination, Protect Marriage lawyer David Thompson labeled Lamb a "committed liberal," citing his membership in such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women, and his financial contributions to the Public Broadcasting System.
In Which We Keep a Child, but Lose a Cat
It's been a challenging couple of weeks around here. First we had the magical exploding girlfriend with the blood pressure of 210/110 and then Katie tried to put her head through her windshield.
Thankfully, both of these potential disasters have turned out okay...Lori got on blood pressure meds and has brought her b.p. down to a sedate 125/70 and Katie's Rubinas Head of Steel turned the windshield to mush and not the other way around.
So here's the story:
Katie's been having her own trying week. She was in Tucson visiting friends over the winter break and one of them was in a fatal car accident. She stayed over for the funeral, then arrived here on Wednesday to pick up her cat and a spare...we're generous that way.
We left her here Wednesday afternoon while we went to Lori's doctor appointment. She finished eating, gathered her stuff and her cats, and headed north for her apartment in Carbondale.
We were sitting in the waiting room at the rural health clinic when I got a call from Katie, telling me she'd been in an accident and she was being taken by ambulance to Union County hospital. I asked her if she was okay and she said there was blood on her face and her head hurt.
She was pretty upset and I could hear the EMTs in the background, so I told her I'd meet her at the hospital. She said, "Mom...I've got the cats." Crap. I told her I'd still meet her at the hospital, then head back and pick up the cats from the truck.
The clinic is next door to the hospital, at the bottom of a steep hill. So I left Lori and ran up the hill. I went to the E.R. and was filling out the paperwork for Katie when a teenage girl came into the waiting room and said, "Uh, we were just at an accident by Pizza Hut and we have these cats...?"
I raised my hand. "That would be me. She's my daughter." The girl and her mother had been in the intersection when Katie had her accident and had jumped out of their car to help. Katie's driver side door had come to rest up against the truck she'd hit and the passenger door was caved in and couldn't open. The mother made soothing mother noises at Katie, then ripped the passenger door off it's hinges like a big-haired Jaws of Life. She said, "oh...you have cats. Don't worry, honey...we'll take care of them."
And they did. They brought the cats to me. I transferred Apa to my car just fine, but underestimated Porch's hysteria and let her claw her way out of my arms. We hunted around for her for a while, but she was gone. I still feel crappy about that.
I ran back up the hill to meet Katie's ambulance. They'd just arrived, and the receptionist said, "She's being triaged. Take a seat and they'll call you in a few minutes." I was thinking, Oh, lady...you don't want to make me go all Mommy on you. You'd better open the damn door, but just then they called me in. I hurried into Katie's room. She was conscious, but shaky. I petted her head and held her arm and looked her over for signs of overt damage.
She actually looked better than I expected. Her face and the front of her head were caked with dried blood and she was strapped to a backboard, but there were no bones sticking out anywhere and she still had both eyes, one nose, and a mouthful of teeth. The rest of her was wrapped in blankets, but the nurse assured me that they were all there too. She told me she'd hit her head on the windshield and broken a bottom tooth, but no other damage was apparent.
We talked while the nurse cleaned up her head wound, and finally we were both calm enough to joke a little and blow off some of the fear. She told me what had happened. She'd been driving northbound and was going through an intersection with a green light and a truck pulling a horse trailer that was travelling southbound had turned left in front of her. She was worried about whether any horses had been injured. The EMT told her that there was a cow in the trailer, not horse, and the cow was unhurt and not even particularly concerned.
By this time Lori was there. We hung around for a couple of hours while she was cleaned and x-ray and shot full of drugs, and then finally we were able to take her home. She'll be spending a couple of days with us to rest and heal and have someone change her bandages and make jokes with. We're extremely grateful and relieved that she's going to be okay. I credit her rock-like Rubinas head.
Yesterday I spoke with the other driver's insurance agent and she said he'd been ticketed and they weren't going to dispute the claim. There would be an adjuster at the wrecking yard on Friday to assess the damage and they'd cut Katie a check within a week. We went to clean out the truck yesterday afternoon and marvelled at the damage. The front end was shoved a foot back, and the windshield was shattered and bowed out at the point where her forehead had made contact with it. Yikes. It could have been so, so much worse.
Thankfully, both of these potential disasters have turned out okay...Lori got on blood pressure meds and has brought her b.p. down to a sedate 125/70 and Katie's Rubinas Head of Steel turned the windshield to mush and not the other way around.
So here's the story:
Katie's been having her own trying week. She was in Tucson visiting friends over the winter break and one of them was in a fatal car accident. She stayed over for the funeral, then arrived here on Wednesday to pick up her cat and a spare...we're generous that way.
We left her here Wednesday afternoon while we went to Lori's doctor appointment. She finished eating, gathered her stuff and her cats, and headed north for her apartment in Carbondale.
We were sitting in the waiting room at the rural health clinic when I got a call from Katie, telling me she'd been in an accident and she was being taken by ambulance to Union County hospital. I asked her if she was okay and she said there was blood on her face and her head hurt.
She was pretty upset and I could hear the EMTs in the background, so I told her I'd meet her at the hospital. She said, "Mom...I've got the cats." Crap. I told her I'd still meet her at the hospital, then head back and pick up the cats from the truck.
The clinic is next door to the hospital, at the bottom of a steep hill. So I left Lori and ran up the hill. I went to the E.R. and was filling out the paperwork for Katie when a teenage girl came into the waiting room and said, "Uh, we were just at an accident by Pizza Hut and we have these cats...?"
I raised my hand. "That would be me. She's my daughter." The girl and her mother had been in the intersection when Katie had her accident and had jumped out of their car to help. Katie's driver side door had come to rest up against the truck she'd hit and the passenger door was caved in and couldn't open. The mother made soothing mother noises at Katie, then ripped the passenger door off it's hinges like a big-haired Jaws of Life. She said, "oh...you have cats. Don't worry, honey...we'll take care of them."
And they did. They brought the cats to me. I transferred Apa to my car just fine, but underestimated Porch's hysteria and let her claw her way out of my arms. We hunted around for her for a while, but she was gone. I still feel crappy about that.
I ran back up the hill to meet Katie's ambulance. They'd just arrived, and the receptionist said, "She's being triaged. Take a seat and they'll call you in a few minutes." I was thinking, Oh, lady...you don't want to make me go all Mommy on you. You'd better open the damn door, but just then they called me in. I hurried into Katie's room. She was conscious, but shaky. I petted her head and held her arm and looked her over for signs of overt damage.
She actually looked better than I expected. Her face and the front of her head were caked with dried blood and she was strapped to a backboard, but there were no bones sticking out anywhere and she still had both eyes, one nose, and a mouthful of teeth. The rest of her was wrapped in blankets, but the nurse assured me that they were all there too. She told me she'd hit her head on the windshield and broken a bottom tooth, but no other damage was apparent.
We talked while the nurse cleaned up her head wound, and finally we were both calm enough to joke a little and blow off some of the fear. She told me what had happened. She'd been driving northbound and was going through an intersection with a green light and a truck pulling a horse trailer that was travelling southbound had turned left in front of her. She was worried about whether any horses had been injured. The EMT told her that there was a cow in the trailer, not horse, and the cow was unhurt and not even particularly concerned.
By this time Lori was there. We hung around for a couple of hours while she was cleaned and x-ray and shot full of drugs, and then finally we were able to take her home. She'll be spending a couple of days with us to rest and heal and have someone change her bandages and make jokes with. We're extremely grateful and relieved that she's going to be okay. I credit her rock-like Rubinas head.
Yesterday I spoke with the other driver's insurance agent and she said he'd been ticketed and they weren't going to dispute the claim. There would be an adjuster at the wrecking yard on Friday to assess the damage and they'd cut Katie a check within a week. We went to clean out the truck yesterday afternoon and marvelled at the damage. The front end was shoved a foot back, and the windshield was shattered and bowed out at the point where her forehead had made contact with it. Yikes. It could have been so, so much worse.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
A Tribute of Sorts
I have this really, really long commute which, I know, is nothing next to you urban commuters. But for us out here in Nowhere, driving an hour to your job is a really, really long way. I like it though; it gives me time to gear up for and wind down from my job.
I enjoy the time: I listen to NPR or to my faux iPod, and sometimes I just listen to the quiet and let my mind wander. And today on my way home I was thinking about this:
Long ago in a land about 50 miles up the road, I discovered the Internets. It was an expensive discovery...$2.99/hour for AOL dial-up, plus long distance charges to Carbondale to connect. But my crappy overpriced AOL connection brought a whole community of lesbians into my life, which was something I would never have experienced in Alto Pass, IL, pop. 350, of whom at least 250 were over 80 years old.
My snazzy AOL dial-up connection was instrumental in the wooing of my first live-in girlfriend. We were grad students together at SIU and she would come over to do research on my computer...oh, and make out. Eventually we were able to dispense with the $2.99/hr-plus-long-distance-charges-to-Carbondale dating, move in together, and get on with the making out in earnest. That saved me a fortune.
Anyway, when I first realized that the Internet was lousy with lesbians it was an epiphany. Coming out had been hard for me, a single mommy in a small town with no other gay people that I knew of. Lesbian chat rooms and lesbian message boards made me swoon with the realization that I was a part of a larger community. I made a lot of online friends and a few real live friends. I met some people, I slept with a few of them (but not all, in spite of what you've heard), and I enjoyed being part of this group of smart, funny, supportive women.
That was back in the 1990s, when PCs weren't yet in every home and before every idiot with a cell phone could send pictures of their genitalia whizzing around the earth at a gazillion megafucks an hour. Back then, computers were mostly still in the hands of people who could spell with real words.
By the beginning of the 21st century, however, computers were in every home, and the chat rooms and message boards began to fill up with, well...morons. People devoted to proving Godwin's Law:
(From Wikipedia)
Godwin's Law "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
Chat rooms and message boards were still places where nice people and interesting conversations could be found, but they were increasingly home to trolls and nutbags.
Enter Webbie.
In the beginning, before I even knew Lori, Webbie was Lori's own personal Internet stalker. I was vaguely aware of her and her story...she had apparently had some sort of medical mishap that had caused her some brain damage and left her physically crippled and a little crazy, with very poor impulse control. Because the denizens of the AOL message boards were an incestuous community, everyone knew someone who knew someone in real life. Thus, I got the lowdown on Webbie. She was a Texan named was Lisa Tr**sd*ll, who had once been an attractive, athletic young woman before some sort of brain injury had left her partially paralyzed and more than a little crazy. I'd seen her crazy in action; she had a pattern of attaching herself to the smartest people on every message board and hounding them with nastiness and paranoid accusations until they threw up their hands, left AOL, and created private message boards elsewhere. That was bad for AOL, but good for the rest of us. Those refugees created communities filled with wonderful, disparate groups whose only common trait was that they'd been stalked by Webbie. Over time the origins of the groups faded, and they just became groups of friends.
I was not very involved in online groups at that point. During that period of my life I was raising small children, moving around the country with my military girlfriend, and going to school for my Med Tech degree. I was still reading the message boards, but not very frequently. After my breakup with the military girlfriend I had a chance meeting with Lori which ultimately blossomed into what we affectionately call The Love That Won't Shut Up.
In addition to discovering the woman who was to become my life partner and best friend, I also acquired her stalker. Now the deranged Texan proved her ability to multitask by stalking us both. She trolled, she flamed, she stealthed, and she made us the center of her universe. For. Years. Wither we goest, so goeth Webbie. Everywhere. Message boards, chat rooms, blogs...you name it and she was there with us, with bells on.
Finally, even we, the tireless Kwevs, gave up. After 12 years on AOL message boards, we threw in the towel, deleted AOL from our computers and rode off into the sunset to our other (private) communities. I thought our Webbie years were finally behind us.
Until now. She's ba-a-a-c-k.
So all that history was just to bring me to this one point:
Why? What in the world could we possibly have that draws her to us after all these years?
Youth and beauty? Not so much anymore.
Wealth? Not hardly.
Lively banter? Maybe...that's pretty much what we do best. And it's free, so that's a plus. But really...I don't delude myself by thinking a clever turn of phrase can't be found elsewhere. Perhaps even in Texas.
So today on my way home, I was thinking about the phenomenon that is Webbie and her incredible stamina. She has toted around her festering dungheap of irrational nonspecific hatred for more than a decade. The object of her obsession has changed more than a dozen times in the last 12 years, but the intensity of her wrathful focus has never wavered. And oddly, perversely, I have to sort of admire that. Say what you will about Webbie, she's not a quitter.
So, Webbie...this is my tribute to you. You may be crazy, but I've grown accustomed to your particular techniques in exercising it, and like a cross between a rottweiler and a chihuahua, your slobbering full-throated growls and incessent shrill yapping have become the background music to our history together. You are our Kodak commercial: you're the Times of Our Lives.
And oddly, I feel a pang of nostalgia. I've missed you.
P.S. We're on Facebook. Friend me, okay?
I enjoy the time: I listen to NPR or to my faux iPod, and sometimes I just listen to the quiet and let my mind wander. And today on my way home I was thinking about this:
Long ago in a land about 50 miles up the road, I discovered the Internets. It was an expensive discovery...$2.99/hour for AOL dial-up, plus long distance charges to Carbondale to connect. But my crappy overpriced AOL connection brought a whole community of lesbians into my life, which was something I would never have experienced in Alto Pass, IL, pop. 350, of whom at least 250 were over 80 years old.
My snazzy AOL dial-up connection was instrumental in the wooing of my first live-in girlfriend. We were grad students together at SIU and she would come over to do research on my computer...oh, and make out. Eventually we were able to dispense with the $2.99/hr-plus-long-distance-charges-to-Carbondale dating, move in together, and get on with the making out in earnest. That saved me a fortune.
Anyway, when I first realized that the Internet was lousy with lesbians it was an epiphany. Coming out had been hard for me, a single mommy in a small town with no other gay people that I knew of. Lesbian chat rooms and lesbian message boards made me swoon with the realization that I was a part of a larger community. I made a lot of online friends and a few real live friends. I met some people, I slept with a few of them (but not all, in spite of what you've heard), and I enjoyed being part of this group of smart, funny, supportive women.
That was back in the 1990s, when PCs weren't yet in every home and before every idiot with a cell phone could send pictures of their genitalia whizzing around the earth at a gazillion megafucks an hour. Back then, computers were mostly still in the hands of people who could spell with real words.
By the beginning of the 21st century, however, computers were in every home, and the chat rooms and message boards began to fill up with, well...morons. People devoted to proving Godwin's Law:
(From Wikipedia)
Godwin's Law "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
Chat rooms and message boards were still places where nice people and interesting conversations could be found, but they were increasingly home to trolls and nutbags.
Enter Webbie.
In the beginning, before I even knew Lori, Webbie was Lori's own personal Internet stalker. I was vaguely aware of her and her story...she had apparently had some sort of medical mishap that had caused her some brain damage and left her physically crippled and a little crazy, with very poor impulse control. Because the denizens of the AOL message boards were an incestuous community, everyone knew someone who knew someone in real life. Thus, I got the lowdown on Webbie. She was a Texan named was Lisa Tr**sd*ll, who had once been an attractive, athletic young woman before some sort of brain injury had left her partially paralyzed and more than a little crazy. I'd seen her crazy in action; she had a pattern of attaching herself to the smartest people on every message board and hounding them with nastiness and paranoid accusations until they threw up their hands, left AOL, and created private message boards elsewhere. That was bad for AOL, but good for the rest of us. Those refugees created communities filled with wonderful, disparate groups whose only common trait was that they'd been stalked by Webbie. Over time the origins of the groups faded, and they just became groups of friends.
I was not very involved in online groups at that point. During that period of my life I was raising small children, moving around the country with my military girlfriend, and going to school for my Med Tech degree. I was still reading the message boards, but not very frequently. After my breakup with the military girlfriend I had a chance meeting with Lori which ultimately blossomed into what we affectionately call The Love That Won't Shut Up.
In addition to discovering the woman who was to become my life partner and best friend, I also acquired her stalker. Now the deranged Texan proved her ability to multitask by stalking us both. She trolled, she flamed, she stealthed, and she made us the center of her universe. For. Years. Wither we goest, so goeth Webbie. Everywhere. Message boards, chat rooms, blogs...you name it and she was there with us, with bells on.
Finally, even we, the tireless Kwevs, gave up. After 12 years on AOL message boards, we threw in the towel, deleted AOL from our computers and rode off into the sunset to our other (private) communities. I thought our Webbie years were finally behind us.
Until now. She's ba-a-a-c-k.
So all that history was just to bring me to this one point:
Why? What in the world could we possibly have that draws her to us after all these years?
Youth and beauty? Not so much anymore.
Wealth? Not hardly.
Lively banter? Maybe...that's pretty much what we do best. And it's free, so that's a plus. But really...I don't delude myself by thinking a clever turn of phrase can't be found elsewhere. Perhaps even in Texas.
So today on my way home, I was thinking about the phenomenon that is Webbie and her incredible stamina. She has toted around her festering dungheap of irrational nonspecific hatred for more than a decade. The object of her obsession has changed more than a dozen times in the last 12 years, but the intensity of her wrathful focus has never wavered. And oddly, perversely, I have to sort of admire that. Say what you will about Webbie, she's not a quitter.
So, Webbie...this is my tribute to you. You may be crazy, but I've grown accustomed to your particular techniques in exercising it, and like a cross between a rottweiler and a chihuahua, your slobbering full-throated growls and incessent shrill yapping have become the background music to our history together. You are our Kodak commercial: you're the Times of Our Lives.
And oddly, I feel a pang of nostalgia. I've missed you.
P.S. We're on Facebook. Friend me, okay?
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Winter in Cairo
I wish I'd had the camera with me this morning.
At least once a week we take a ten mile drive across the bridge over the Ohio River to buy gas and kerosene in the pretty little town of Wickliffe, Kentucky. Wickliffe overlooks the Mississippi River about two miles south of its confluence with the Ohio. Cairo sits right at that confluence, which gives us a bird's eye view of the very cool phenomenon that occurs when the waters of the two rivers meet.
Generally what you see is a distinct line where the brown water of the Mississippi runs smack-dab into the blue-green water of the Ohio before they combine and head for New Orleans. That dark green patch of town hugging the shoreline of the Ohio is Cairo. Pretty view, huh?
Generally what you see is a distinct line where the brown water of the Mississippi runs smack-dab into the blue-green water of the Ohio before they combine and head for New Orleans. That dark green patch of town hugging the shoreline of the Ohio is Cairo. Pretty view, huh?
It's so pretty, in fact, that whatever else we happen to be talking about, it's become part of our driving-to-Kentucky ritual for one or the other of us to spontaneously declare our love for this place every single time we get to about the middle of the bridge, at the spot where the view is maximized. Either it's the water or the barges or the foliage (or the goofballs who somehow managed to drive their camo-clad trucks out into the river before it rose and left them stranded on a little island), but every trip in every season has had something about it that's made us stop in mid-conversation to congratulate each other on having the excellent sense and good fortune to be living here.
Of all the seasons, winter in Southern Illinois is not generally the prettiest. We're too far south to get big drifty winter wonderlands of snow, so we mostly get dead trees (which have their own sort of stark beauty), but we did get some snow this week and the sub-zero temperatures have kept most of it on the ground. So imagine this scene covered in snow, and imagine the Mississippi River looking like a big white frozen slushie being poured into the clear blue Ohio River. Now imagine intrepid little pilot boats mightily pushing their strings of barges up river through the ice. That was our view this morning.
I think I'll try to get down to Fort Defiance tomorrow (that point of land poking out into the exact spot where the rivers meet in the photo) and climb the tower to get a picture.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invictus
I'm pleased to report that, just as it has since the dawn of time, the sun has remained unconquered (despite efforts by NOM, SarahPAC, Fox News and the GOP) and will once again begin rising earlier and staying up later. Yay!
However you celebrate this "birthday of the unconquered sun" -- be it with Druidic fir trees, Mithraic gift-giving and caroling, Saturnalia feasting, or invoking the elvish spirit of De Goede Sint Sinterklass like the chilly Germanic pagans of old -- we can all be grateful for that good old 23° 26' axial tilt that has been the cause of mid-winter celebrations of all sorts by human beings through the ages.
Happy Ramadan, Cool Yule, Blessed Bodhi Day, Diwali Mubarak, Happy Chanukah, Blessed Solstice, Merry Christmas ... and all the others I've missed.
Make the Yuletide Gay.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Spam-a-lot
For the time being, until some better solution presents itself (like Blogger putting some controls on this crap, for instance) comment moderation has been turned on. It's just too hard to track down all the phishing and spam comments and remove them after they've posted. It sucks to have to do this, but we don't need Cialis, and I'm pretty sure the rest of you don't, either. If you do, you're reading the wrong blog. : )
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Mysteries of Nature
How does a ten pound cat gack up a twenty five pound hairball? Not that it ever happens at my house....
Monday, December 14, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Crimestoppers!
The other day we stopped at our local gas station, the Cut-Mart, so Lori could buy a pack of cigarettes before we went to her Christmas party in Evansville. The Cut-Mart is a constant source of jokes in our house; it's on the bad side of town and is the site of frequent knife fights. If we need to stop for gas after the sun goes down? We don't.
But on Saturday afternoon the Cut-Mart is a perfectly viable gas station with an excellent little deli that makes some of the best fried chicken on the planet. While Lori went in to buy her cigarettes, I sat in the car and scoped out the parking lot for potential entertainment. A Cairo parking lot is generally more interesting than anything on prime time tv.
There was a car idling in the parking lot next to me, with a driver who also appeared to be waiting for someone. After a minute or two, another car pulled up next to him and a happy smiling guy jumped out of his car and into the passenger seat of the waiting car. Maybe a minute passed, and then he got out of that car, got back in his own, and drove off.
Okay...I was born in 1963, which made me a teenager in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As was the custom among moderately bad teenagers at the time, I imbibed in all the usual illicit drugs. So you'd think I'd be a little faster on the uptake. But Lori got back in the car and I told her what she'd missed and asked her if maybe that had been a drug deal. She rolled her eyes at my cluelessness and said, "Yeah. That was a drug deal."
My only defense was that in the 1970s we had better manners and would invite our dealer in for a Coke and brownies. Don't judge me....it was the suburbs.
So now that I know what I'm looking for, I've graduated from being one of those horrible middle-aged women who yell, "Hey you kids! Get out of my flowers!" to being that horrible middle-aged women peeping through her windows looking for possible criminal activity in the park.
I'd like to be all Elmore Leonard, but I worry I might be more Gladys Kravitz. Can a housecoat possibly not be in my future?
But on Saturday afternoon the Cut-Mart is a perfectly viable gas station with an excellent little deli that makes some of the best fried chicken on the planet. While Lori went in to buy her cigarettes, I sat in the car and scoped out the parking lot for potential entertainment. A Cairo parking lot is generally more interesting than anything on prime time tv.
There was a car idling in the parking lot next to me, with a driver who also appeared to be waiting for someone. After a minute or two, another car pulled up next to him and a happy smiling guy jumped out of his car and into the passenger seat of the waiting car. Maybe a minute passed, and then he got out of that car, got back in his own, and drove off.
Okay...I was born in 1963, which made me a teenager in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As was the custom among moderately bad teenagers at the time, I imbibed in all the usual illicit drugs. So you'd think I'd be a little faster on the uptake. But Lori got back in the car and I told her what she'd missed and asked her if maybe that had been a drug deal. She rolled her eyes at my cluelessness and said, "Yeah. That was a drug deal."
My only defense was that in the 1970s we had better manners and would invite our dealer in for a Coke and brownies. Don't judge me....it was the suburbs.
So now that I know what I'm looking for, I've graduated from being one of those horrible middle-aged women who yell, "Hey you kids! Get out of my flowers!" to being that horrible middle-aged women peeping through her windows looking for possible criminal activity in the park.
I'd like to be all Elmore Leonard, but I worry I might be more Gladys Kravitz. Can a housecoat possibly not be in my future?
Friday, December 11, 2009
Cairo Hearts Teh Gay
I'm sure this is horridly un-PC and it embarrasses me a little, but you know me...I'm sort of socially challenged anyway, so consider the source.
For most of my life I've lived in communities that were majority Caucasian. This is probably the first time I've lived anywhere where the population was evenly split between white folks and black folks. When we moved here my coworkers acted like I was insane, like we had just moved to the bad side of Baghdad, but actually, it's been very nice. People, both black and white, have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome, even in the face of the obvious Gay.
When we moved here in August the first thing we did was apply to buy the municipally-owned field next to our house, The city was happy to oblige; anything that gets property back onto the tax roles is well received in Cairo. I had to make several visits to City Hall to drop off bids and deposit money, and then Lori and I went down there to sign the deed on the property.
The woman working the counter at City Hall is probably in her late 60s and very Southern. We're right across the river from Kentucky and a lot of the locals have that air of antebellum Southern manners and sensibilities. When I went in to drop off the final payment on the property she told me she had written the deed as a joint property with right of survivorship, like she would with a married couple.
She clearly understands the nature of our relationship and isn't worked up about it. And really, that's been the predominant attitude here. The gay isn't scary or dangerous or whatever else homophobes think to justify their -isms. Our neighbors understand that we're a couple and behave accordingly. In conversation, they ask after Lori, invite us to join local civic and social groups, compliment our yard and our pets, and try to catch a glimpse in our windows. Like people anywhere do with their neighbors.
Like I said, this is my first time living in a black community. There are a lot of churches here, and a lot of churchgoers. I think I had a sense that we might encounter some hostility with regard to our openly lesbian relationship. I've read repeatedly that blacks in general support a lot of liberal causes but draw the line at Teh Gay, since many religious people think it's a fast track to hell and feel the need to either distance themselves from it or pontificate at it. But either the local churches teach tolerance and diversity, or the local citizenry have too much on their own plates to worry about ours.
So the moral of the story is that I like it here. I feel welcome, and any oddness is not due to the gay, it's due to the cultural disparity between southern blacks and northern whites, which is much more interesting as far as I'm concerned.
So I'm likely to post a lot of stories about the community, but I hope they're taken in the spirit intended. It's a friendly community filled with kind people and I love it here. I've liked almost every person I've encountered here (Except the melon guy. What's up with him?), but they certainly have ways about them that leave me scratching my head at times and as always, I'll chronicle them here.
For most of my life I've lived in communities that were majority Caucasian. This is probably the first time I've lived anywhere where the population was evenly split between white folks and black folks. When we moved here my coworkers acted like I was insane, like we had just moved to the bad side of Baghdad, but actually, it's been very nice. People, both black and white, have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome, even in the face of the obvious Gay.
When we moved here in August the first thing we did was apply to buy the municipally-owned field next to our house, The city was happy to oblige; anything that gets property back onto the tax roles is well received in Cairo. I had to make several visits to City Hall to drop off bids and deposit money, and then Lori and I went down there to sign the deed on the property.
The woman working the counter at City Hall is probably in her late 60s and very Southern. We're right across the river from Kentucky and a lot of the locals have that air of antebellum Southern manners and sensibilities. When I went in to drop off the final payment on the property she told me she had written the deed as a joint property with right of survivorship, like she would with a married couple.
She clearly understands the nature of our relationship and isn't worked up about it. And really, that's been the predominant attitude here. The gay isn't scary or dangerous or whatever else homophobes think to justify their -isms. Our neighbors understand that we're a couple and behave accordingly. In conversation, they ask after Lori, invite us to join local civic and social groups, compliment our yard and our pets, and try to catch a glimpse in our windows. Like people anywhere do with their neighbors.
Like I said, this is my first time living in a black community. There are a lot of churches here, and a lot of churchgoers. I think I had a sense that we might encounter some hostility with regard to our openly lesbian relationship. I've read repeatedly that blacks in general support a lot of liberal causes but draw the line at Teh Gay, since many religious people think it's a fast track to hell and feel the need to either distance themselves from it or pontificate at it. But either the local churches teach tolerance and diversity, or the local citizenry have too much on their own plates to worry about ours.
So the moral of the story is that I like it here. I feel welcome, and any oddness is not due to the gay, it's due to the cultural disparity between southern blacks and northern whites, which is much more interesting as far as I'm concerned.
So I'm likely to post a lot of stories about the community, but I hope they're taken in the spirit intended. It's a friendly community filled with kind people and I love it here. I've liked almost every person I've encountered here (Except the melon guy. What's up with him?), but they certainly have ways about them that leave me scratching my head at times and as always, I'll chronicle them here.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
God Loves Me. Ask Anyone.
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm one tiny inconvenience from a full-blown meltdown. I think it's a combination of PMS, lack of exercise, and my cheap knock-off faux Lamictal. But regardless (or irregardless, as we say here in the Lower Midwest), I'm feeling a little ragged.
So this morning I woke up to a couple of minor inconveniences that put me into a deep blue funk. It was cold in the bathroom, there was no half-and-half for the coffee, and the second I turned my back on Cooper she gulped down half a notepad. We had a wrestling match for the other half and for a second I think she thought about biting me, until I growled viciously and clamped the hand that wasn't in her mouth firmly over both nostrils.
I finally yanked the bedraggled soggy ex-notepad from her mouth, went into the ice cold bathroom with my unhalf-and-halfed black coffee, and showered for the approximately two minutes that our recalcitrant water heater was willing to oblige.
I growled once more at Cooper on my way out, just because, then grabbed my book and keys and headed to work. Early. So I could attend a Corporate mandated meeting designed to make us more fucking happy at our fucking jobs. When I turned around after locking the door, I realized there was someone sitting on my front stairs.
I see this guy all the time. He's an older black man, walks with a cane, and spends a significant portion of every day sitting on the marble steps of the Post Office across the street. Today he was sitting on my steps with his cane, staring off into space. As I was locking the door, he turned around and said, "Good morning, Young Lady. I was dear, dear friends with Miss Kristie (the previous owner of our house, and a story unto herself), and I am very sorry that she has moved away."
I said good morning back and walked around him to the bottom of the stairs, hoping he wasn't going to be crazy, since I was already cutting it close for getting to the meeting about the fucking happiness at work. He introduced himself, and I said, "I'm Evelyn. Nice to meet you."
And he said, "I know. I've already heard about you."
Uh-oh.
Then he said, "You know...a person's sexuality is not important. It's what's in their heart. That's what's important."
Ummm...BIG uh-oh? Are we going to discuss sexuality?
He said, "I'm 74 years old and I'm a pastor. I don't smoke or drink, I never robbed nor raped nobody, and I try to help out any way I can. God don't care who you love, he just cares if you have a good heart."
And really...I'm an atheist, and this even warmed my heart. I was settling in for a feel-good "We are the World" conversation.
And then he asked me for $3.00. Or stamps.
My heart was so warmed that I gave him the whole book of stamps. If I'd had $3.00, I would have given him that too.
He should go into sales.
So this morning I woke up to a couple of minor inconveniences that put me into a deep blue funk. It was cold in the bathroom, there was no half-and-half for the coffee, and the second I turned my back on Cooper she gulped down half a notepad. We had a wrestling match for the other half and for a second I think she thought about biting me, until I growled viciously and clamped the hand that wasn't in her mouth firmly over both nostrils.
I finally yanked the bedraggled soggy ex-notepad from her mouth, went into the ice cold bathroom with my unhalf-and-halfed black coffee, and showered for the approximately two minutes that our recalcitrant water heater was willing to oblige.
I growled once more at Cooper on my way out, just because, then grabbed my book and keys and headed to work. Early. So I could attend a Corporate mandated meeting designed to make us more fucking happy at our fucking jobs. When I turned around after locking the door, I realized there was someone sitting on my front stairs.
I see this guy all the time. He's an older black man, walks with a cane, and spends a significant portion of every day sitting on the marble steps of the Post Office across the street. Today he was sitting on my steps with his cane, staring off into space. As I was locking the door, he turned around and said, "Good morning, Young Lady. I was dear, dear friends with Miss Kristie (the previous owner of our house, and a story unto herself), and I am very sorry that she has moved away."
I said good morning back and walked around him to the bottom of the stairs, hoping he wasn't going to be crazy, since I was already cutting it close for getting to the meeting about the fucking happiness at work. He introduced himself, and I said, "I'm Evelyn. Nice to meet you."
And he said, "I know. I've already heard about you."
Uh-oh.
Then he said, "You know...a person's sexuality is not important. It's what's in their heart. That's what's important."
Ummm...BIG uh-oh? Are we going to discuss sexuality?
He said, "I'm 74 years old and I'm a pastor. I don't smoke or drink, I never robbed nor raped nobody, and I try to help out any way I can. God don't care who you love, he just cares if you have a good heart."
And really...I'm an atheist, and this even warmed my heart. I was settling in for a feel-good "We are the World" conversation.
And then he asked me for $3.00. Or stamps.
My heart was so warmed that I gave him the whole book of stamps. If I'd had $3.00, I would have given him that too.
He should go into sales.
A PSA for Bibliophiles
If you're a person who likes books, check out Paperbackswap.com. It's a site where people exchange books by listing their books that they're willing to give away for free, and get credits to use to get other people's books. The whole transaction takes place for the price of book rate postage. When you join they start you out with two free book credits, so you can order a couple right off the bat.
I discovered them a few months back and have gotten rid of a huge pile of books I'll never read again nor inflict on my loved ones, and I've acquired a huge pile I'm really excited about. Fiction, nonfiction, paperback and hardcover...they're all free. It's a godsend to fiscally-challenged book nerds.
If you do happen to join, please use my e-mail address, UALabGeek@gmail.com, in the "referred by" section and I'll get a couple of free credits too. (You'll get your reward in heaven, or I'll invite you over for pie. Your choice. But the pie is pretty damn good, and your chances of getting into heaven might be a little iffy. )
One interesting caveat, though. The gay and lesbian section is also the heading under which anti-gay and lesbian books are found. I was browsing through the available books and between volumes of lesbian humor, lesbian mysteries and lesbian erotica I found stories about how much God hates lesbians. Oh, the irony.
I discovered them a few months back and have gotten rid of a huge pile of books I'll never read again nor inflict on my loved ones, and I've acquired a huge pile I'm really excited about. Fiction, nonfiction, paperback and hardcover...they're all free. It's a godsend to fiscally-challenged book nerds.
If you do happen to join, please use my e-mail address, UALabGeek@gmail.com, in the "referred by" section and I'll get a couple of free credits too. (You'll get your reward in heaven, or I'll invite you over for pie. Your choice. But the pie is pretty damn good, and your chances of getting into heaven might be a little iffy. )
One interesting caveat, though. The gay and lesbian section is also the heading under which anti-gay and lesbian books are found. I was browsing through the available books and between volumes of lesbian humor, lesbian mysteries and lesbian erotica I found stories about how much God hates lesbians. Oh, the irony.
A Dead Horse Beaten
The cop story:
I've been sort of blogjammed since the cop incident. We moved, and then I got busy doing new house things, and then...Officer Gibson.
In the immediate aftermath of my encounter with Officer Gibson, I did indeed travel all over Southern Illinois...over and over, in fact... to try to find some governing body who would punish him. I spoke to the state police, the state's attorney, and a variety of interested and/or knowledgeable people in law and law enforcement.
I did finally find the right person and she outlined a strategy to get my new friend Officer Gibson out of his patrol car and maybe into an unemployment line. Beyond that, though...not so much. He and the municipality he worked for could be sued for violating my civil rights, but not penalized in a criminal court. There's a lot of leeway afforded to police officers in the manner in which they arrest and detain people.
And in the short term, part of the resolution strategy outlined by the state's attorney was that I was to avoid telling this story to too many people. I interpreted that to mean probably not telling the entire Internets, so as of August 25th, I was pretty much dead in the water as a blogger. I couldn't tell the only story I needed to tell, so I couldn't really tell any story at all. I was stuck behind this boulder of a story and couldn't figure out a way to get around it.
But this morning seemed like as good a time as any to exorcise this demon and get back on track. I had been to court, told my story, and left it in the hands of a higher legal authority...and presumably they're dealing with it now. Whether they are or not, I don't feel any obligation to keep my mouth shut any longer, so here it is.
But on my way home tonight I was thinking about this in the context of the little moments that change the direction of your life. Maybe not change your actual life, but open a window to a view a person might not ever see, or even know they ought to see.
Ten years ago I got hit in the temple with an errantly thrown softball, and it instantly and radically changed my life forever. Five months ago I was handcuffed and bullied on the side of a dark highway. I didn't commit a crime, nor did I do any of the things that I would have typically expect to cause such a result. What I did was have the bad luck to be in the car that a crazy cop pulled over to shake down for cash, and the bad fortune to be both local and bothersome. It was the same amount of randomness as the softball and just as impersonal.
So. Power. You never notice it until you lose it.
In my real life, I'm a force to be reckoned with. I'm fairly smart and verbally nimble. I'm not fearless, but I'm brave enough to stand up for myself. I'm college-educated and middle class, and I expect to be treated with respect.
So when some big bruiser with a gun and a pair of handcuffs takes that away from me in an instant, it's a shock. There's a "maybe you're confused about who I am" moment, followed by a suspicion that this is happening because of who I am, and not in spite of it. Maybe if I wasn't a person who looks an asshole cop in the eye and says, "wtf??", he would have strutted around, metaphorically pissed on my bumper and drove off.
And then what? Well...I wouldn't have bruised wrists, a ticket for crossing the white line, and a burning feeling of almost-shame at having been so easily stripped of my power by some redneck moron who doesn't know one tenth of the things I know...and doesn't need to, since he has that gun-and-handcuff thing going for him.
So I'm still a middle-aged, middle class white woman with a couple of college degrees, and I don't for a moment imagine that I can understand what it must be like to be a person who expects to be randomly and gratuitously harassed for the crime of being, what...alive, maybe? But I certainly do have a better sense of the hopeless anger and frustration that comes with realizing that personal power only exists if everyone remembers to follow the same rule book. It doesn't matter how special I think I am if the guy with the handcuffs doesn't think so too.
But the silver lining of this experience is that it gives me another way to interpret and understand the world. When life is going according to the plan, whatever the plan happens to be, it feels linear, like a drive on a road. Follow it, and it will take you where you mean to go.
But when something like this happens, it makes it clear that life isn't a road, it's a field...every direction has some sort of value, and it will take you somewhere, even if it's not a place you thought you wanted to see. And those unintended detours add new color and nuance to our internal picture of the world.
I would always prefer things to work the way I want. But I can (grudgingly) see the value of, as my mother used to say, upsetting the apple cart. When we restack the apples they have an entirely different look, and a whole bunch of different apples are available for inspection.
I've been sort of blogjammed since the cop incident. We moved, and then I got busy doing new house things, and then...Officer Gibson.
In the immediate aftermath of my encounter with Officer Gibson, I did indeed travel all over Southern Illinois...over and over, in fact... to try to find some governing body who would punish him. I spoke to the state police, the state's attorney, and a variety of interested and/or knowledgeable people in law and law enforcement.
I did finally find the right person and she outlined a strategy to get my new friend Officer Gibson out of his patrol car and maybe into an unemployment line. Beyond that, though...not so much. He and the municipality he worked for could be sued for violating my civil rights, but not penalized in a criminal court. There's a lot of leeway afforded to police officers in the manner in which they arrest and detain people.
And in the short term, part of the resolution strategy outlined by the state's attorney was that I was to avoid telling this story to too many people. I interpreted that to mean probably not telling the entire Internets, so as of August 25th, I was pretty much dead in the water as a blogger. I couldn't tell the only story I needed to tell, so I couldn't really tell any story at all. I was stuck behind this boulder of a story and couldn't figure out a way to get around it.
But this morning seemed like as good a time as any to exorcise this demon and get back on track. I had been to court, told my story, and left it in the hands of a higher legal authority...and presumably they're dealing with it now. Whether they are or not, I don't feel any obligation to keep my mouth shut any longer, so here it is.
But on my way home tonight I was thinking about this in the context of the little moments that change the direction of your life. Maybe not change your actual life, but open a window to a view a person might not ever see, or even know they ought to see.
Ten years ago I got hit in the temple with an errantly thrown softball, and it instantly and radically changed my life forever. Five months ago I was handcuffed and bullied on the side of a dark highway. I didn't commit a crime, nor did I do any of the things that I would have typically expect to cause such a result. What I did was have the bad luck to be in the car that a crazy cop pulled over to shake down for cash, and the bad fortune to be both local and bothersome. It was the same amount of randomness as the softball and just as impersonal.
So. Power. You never notice it until you lose it.
In my real life, I'm a force to be reckoned with. I'm fairly smart and verbally nimble. I'm not fearless, but I'm brave enough to stand up for myself. I'm college-educated and middle class, and I expect to be treated with respect.
So when some big bruiser with a gun and a pair of handcuffs takes that away from me in an instant, it's a shock. There's a "maybe you're confused about who I am" moment, followed by a suspicion that this is happening because of who I am, and not in spite of it. Maybe if I wasn't a person who looks an asshole cop in the eye and says, "wtf??", he would have strutted around, metaphorically pissed on my bumper and drove off.
And then what? Well...I wouldn't have bruised wrists, a ticket for crossing the white line, and a burning feeling of almost-shame at having been so easily stripped of my power by some redneck moron who doesn't know one tenth of the things I know...and doesn't need to, since he has that gun-and-handcuff thing going for him.
So I'm still a middle-aged, middle class white woman with a couple of college degrees, and I don't for a moment imagine that I can understand what it must be like to be a person who expects to be randomly and gratuitously harassed for the crime of being, what...alive, maybe? But I certainly do have a better sense of the hopeless anger and frustration that comes with realizing that personal power only exists if everyone remembers to follow the same rule book. It doesn't matter how special I think I am if the guy with the handcuffs doesn't think so too.
But the silver lining of this experience is that it gives me another way to interpret and understand the world. When life is going according to the plan, whatever the plan happens to be, it feels linear, like a drive on a road. Follow it, and it will take you where you mean to go.
But when something like this happens, it makes it clear that life isn't a road, it's a field...every direction has some sort of value, and it will take you somewhere, even if it's not a place you thought you wanted to see. And those unintended detours add new color and nuance to our internal picture of the world.
I would always prefer things to work the way I want. But I can (grudgingly) see the value of, as my mother used to say, upsetting the apple cart. When we restack the apples they have an entirely different look, and a whole bunch of different apples are available for inspection.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
In Which a White Laboratory Professional Gets Treated Like a Black Person, and Doesn't Care For It. Not One Bit.
I hate to juxtapose two unrelated topics when it's been so freakin' long since I posted on even one topic, but I have two things on my mind, and well...it's my blog. I can juxtapose my heart out and no one can stop me. Ha.
Thing one:
Last August I got pulled over on I-57 on my way home from work.
It was midnight-ish. I was driving 62 in a 65, wearing my seat belt, with all lights on the truck in good operating order...I knew I was in good shape. I saw the lights behind me and pulled onto the shoulder. The cop got out of his car, approached my window, and asked for my license, registration and insurance card. I wasn't sweating it because as an evening shifter who frequently comes home from work at about the time the bars close, I've been pulled over a few times on random drunk checks and I assumed this was that.
After a few minutes he brought all my paperwork back and said, "Have you been drinking tonight, Ma'am?" I told him no, I was on my way home from work at the hospital.
He stood there at my window for a while. He shined his flashlight into my truck. He stood there some more. Finally, I said, "What?"
And he replied, "You veered over the white line."
"Which white line?"
"That one", he said, pointing at the shoulder.
"No I didn't," says I, indignantly. "There's a rumble strip over there. If I had crossed the line, I would have rumbled. But I didn't. So I didn't cross the line."
At this point, my routine traffic stop got weird. The cop said, "Don't fucking lie to me! Get out of the vehicle!" I still thought he might think I was drinking, so I got out and prepared myself for a field sobriety test. What I wasn't prepared for was to be spun around, pushed against the side of the truck, and cuffed behind my back.
The cop continued yelling. "Don't fucking lie to me! Do you know what that is? That's obstruction of justice! You just bought yourself a ticket to jail for lying to a police officer!" Then walked me back to his car and pushed me into the back seat.
Did I mention I've never been arrested in my life? I've never been handcuffed, never even been in the back of a police car except the time my girlfriend forgot to pick my up at the Cape Fear Crocs game and a Fayetteville cop invited me and the kids to sit in his car to get out of the rain until she showed up.
So I was shocked into silence by the whole thing. I said, "You're kidding!" when he put the cuffs on, but that was it. So there I was, sitting silently in the back of the police car while he continued to yell at me, thinking what the hell? Can this actually be happening?
"Do you want to go to jail? Because that's where you're going. Lying to a police officer is a serious crime! And you won't see a judge before tomorrow, so no one is going to come down and get you out!
In between threats, Cop was studying a small computer on the dashboard next to him.
He asked me, "Do you still live at this address?"
I told him no, we'd moved to Cairo twelve days earlier and I hadn't yet changed my license.
"Don't fucking lie to me! There are no white people in Cairo! What's your real address?"
I gave him the address in Cairo and said, "Look. You can follow me home if you want, and watch me stick the key in the door."
He went back to his computer.
"Are you related to these people?" he finally said as he swivelled the screen around so I could see it in the back seat. "They're my kids." I said.
He ran his finger down the screen and rattled of a list of their various (traffic) crimes. Then he said, "What are you doing about this?"
"Not a damn thing. They're adults. They can take care of their own stuff."
"You're not a very good mother, are you?" he said.
Okay...NOW I was pissed. Handcuffs, insults, screaming accusations...ok. But denigrate my parenting? Oh hell no. Don't even go there. The next time he offered to take me to jail I said, "Fine. Have at it. If people go to jail for crossing the white line, then get on it. I'm ready."
He didn't reply, and continued studying his computer screen for a few more minutes. Finally, he took out his ticket book and wrote me a ticket for improper lane usage, and wrote "Lying to a police officer" in the comments section.
He got out of the car, opened the back door, pulled me out, removed the cuffs, and told me I could go. He was a big guy, so I had to look up to see his face. I said, "What's your name?"
"Officer Gibson, ma'am."
"Officer Gibson, are you a state trooper?"
"No ma'am. I'm an Ullin city police officer."
(What was with the "ma'am" all the sudden? Five minutes ago I was a pathological line-crossing liar. Now I'm "ma'am"?)
I looked up at him and said, "Officer Gibson, I'll be back in the morning to see your boss. Bastard." I was glad my voice wasn't shaking.
I walked back to the truck on quivery rubber legs and thought I'll be goddamned if I'll stumble in front of this bastard. Then I got in the truck, buckled up, turned on my turn signal, pulled out onto the highway, and cried like a girl all the way home.
Six months later, I still think about it every night when I come home from work.
(I was wrong...I won't tell the other story today. I have to take a shower and go to work now, but I'll get back to it later.)
Thing one:
Last August I got pulled over on I-57 on my way home from work.
It was midnight-ish. I was driving 62 in a 65, wearing my seat belt, with all lights on the truck in good operating order...I knew I was in good shape. I saw the lights behind me and pulled onto the shoulder. The cop got out of his car, approached my window, and asked for my license, registration and insurance card. I wasn't sweating it because as an evening shifter who frequently comes home from work at about the time the bars close, I've been pulled over a few times on random drunk checks and I assumed this was that.
After a few minutes he brought all my paperwork back and said, "Have you been drinking tonight, Ma'am?" I told him no, I was on my way home from work at the hospital.
He stood there at my window for a while. He shined his flashlight into my truck. He stood there some more. Finally, I said, "What?"
And he replied, "You veered over the white line."
"Which white line?"
"That one", he said, pointing at the shoulder.
"No I didn't," says I, indignantly. "There's a rumble strip over there. If I had crossed the line, I would have rumbled. But I didn't. So I didn't cross the line."
At this point, my routine traffic stop got weird. The cop said, "Don't fucking lie to me! Get out of the vehicle!" I still thought he might think I was drinking, so I got out and prepared myself for a field sobriety test. What I wasn't prepared for was to be spun around, pushed against the side of the truck, and cuffed behind my back.
The cop continued yelling. "Don't fucking lie to me! Do you know what that is? That's obstruction of justice! You just bought yourself a ticket to jail for lying to a police officer!" Then walked me back to his car and pushed me into the back seat.
Did I mention I've never been arrested in my life? I've never been handcuffed, never even been in the back of a police car except the time my girlfriend forgot to pick my up at the Cape Fear Crocs game and a Fayetteville cop invited me and the kids to sit in his car to get out of the rain until she showed up.
So I was shocked into silence by the whole thing. I said, "You're kidding!" when he put the cuffs on, but that was it. So there I was, sitting silently in the back of the police car while he continued to yell at me, thinking what the hell? Can this actually be happening?
"Do you want to go to jail? Because that's where you're going. Lying to a police officer is a serious crime! And you won't see a judge before tomorrow, so no one is going to come down and get you out!
In between threats, Cop was studying a small computer on the dashboard next to him.
He asked me, "Do you still live at this address?"
I told him no, we'd moved to Cairo twelve days earlier and I hadn't yet changed my license.
"Don't fucking lie to me! There are no white people in Cairo! What's your real address?"
I gave him the address in Cairo and said, "Look. You can follow me home if you want, and watch me stick the key in the door."
He went back to his computer.
"Are you related to these people?" he finally said as he swivelled the screen around so I could see it in the back seat. "They're my kids." I said.
He ran his finger down the screen and rattled of a list of their various (traffic) crimes. Then he said, "What are you doing about this?"
"Not a damn thing. They're adults. They can take care of their own stuff."
"You're not a very good mother, are you?" he said.
Okay...NOW I was pissed. Handcuffs, insults, screaming accusations...ok. But denigrate my parenting? Oh hell no. Don't even go there. The next time he offered to take me to jail I said, "Fine. Have at it. If people go to jail for crossing the white line, then get on it. I'm ready."
He didn't reply, and continued studying his computer screen for a few more minutes. Finally, he took out his ticket book and wrote me a ticket for improper lane usage, and wrote "Lying to a police officer" in the comments section.
He got out of the car, opened the back door, pulled me out, removed the cuffs, and told me I could go. He was a big guy, so I had to look up to see his face. I said, "What's your name?"
"Officer Gibson, ma'am."
"Officer Gibson, are you a state trooper?"
"No ma'am. I'm an Ullin city police officer."
(What was with the "ma'am" all the sudden? Five minutes ago I was a pathological line-crossing liar. Now I'm "ma'am"?)
I looked up at him and said, "Officer Gibson, I'll be back in the morning to see your boss. Bastard." I was glad my voice wasn't shaking.
I walked back to the truck on quivery rubber legs and thought I'll be goddamned if I'll stumble in front of this bastard. Then I got in the truck, buckled up, turned on my turn signal, pulled out onto the highway, and cried like a girl all the way home.
Six months later, I still think about it every night when I come home from work.
(I was wrong...I won't tell the other story today. I have to take a shower and go to work now, but I'll get back to it later.)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
There. Now it's official. I'm senile.
Tonight on the drive home I scared myself. A lot.
I've been driving this 60 mile commute since mid-August and I know I-57 between Cairo and Marion like the back of my hand. I can drive it in the rain, in the fog, before dawn, after dark and, up until tonight, even when I'm deadly tired. Tonight I got lost coming home. Really lost, like "where the hell am I and where is home?!?" lost. If it weren't for the nifty direction finder in my car I might still be out there somewhere getting ready to cry.
I'm still not sure how it happened. It's dark and I was tired, but I know my exit. The highway curves to the left and the exit veers to the right. It takes a long curve to the right, then a curve to the left and comes to a stop. Then you turn left onto Route 3 and you're there. But tonight when the highway curved left and I veered right, taking the same long curves right and left, and came to a stop just like every other night, the left turn put me on little highway I've never seen and there was nothing familiar anywhere. I finally turned into an old pot-hole ridden gas station I've never seen before in my life and turned around. I found my way back to the highway, not sure which way to go, and took a guess. The next sign I saw said I still had seven miles to go to Cairo. At that point I was so confused I wondered if I'd somehow managed to drive across the bridge into Missouri without realizing it. There was still nothing that looked familiar. There were lots of lights I don't remember ever seeing and railroad overpasses that seemed completely unfamiliar and out of place. My directional computer thingie said that I was, indeed, still headed south, and the signs kept saying I was headed for Cairo, but nothing looked right to me until my exit came (again?) and it was exactly the exit I always take. But it was also exactly the exit I just took, except this time it went where it was supposed to.
I still don't know what happened, but whatever it was I didn't like it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hellooooo?
So, where the hell have we been, anyway? Obviously not blogging. We've been reading, baking cookies, walking the dogs, hanging out on Facebook, working, commuting, settling into the new house and generally not being very interesting. Certainly not blog interesting. I feel guilty about it, if that counts, so I thought I'd make a token attempt to post something in November, what with it being NaBloWhatever.
On the upside, we're loving our house and our town. We're as settled in and unpacked as we can be until we erect the wall-o'-bookshelves; and aside from painting Ev's work-out room there aren't any other inside projects that need done right now, so we're in the idea gathering stage until some need reveals itself. Ev's big project has been clearing and cleaning up the lots we bought adjoining the house and wow, there was a lot of extra yard under that mess! We've been sneaking the dismantled chicken coop and other sundry trash from the yard to various dumpsters around town under cover of darkness, where we usually meet up with people who are taking things back out of them to sell for scrap. It's sort of like a social event ... but not. Burning shit in the yard was much more efficient!
Ev's also been collecting hundred-year-old bricks for the upcoming patio project. The really cool ones are heavy as hell and stamped with the year and manufacturer, so those are the ones she watches for when a house or building comes down (which they do with saddening frequency. We just lost three more historic downtown buildings last week). She and Pickle find the good rubble piles on their long walks (the last one was about six miles worth along the top of the levee clear to the Mississippi river) and then we go back (again under cover of darkness) to load bricks in the truck. I'm not sure anyone cares, but the clandestine nature of the scavenging makes it more fun. What can I say? We're easily entertained.
On the downside, Ev's been working way too much overtime way too often, Cooper's ear needed surgery for another hematoma, the Sebring has gone rapidly from being my dream car to a problem child to a goddamn mechanical albatross around my neck that spends as much time in the shop as on the road, and we finally had to put our sweet old Sage to sleep at the end of the summer. All in all, life balances out, but I wish it didn't feel the need to swing from one extreme to another in the process.
And I'm really really disappointed in President Obama.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Death is lonely, Hunter
In an almost flawlessly executed catch-22 with a double twisting dismount, Carcieri stated that "he was also uncertain 'how it would be ascertained in many circumstances whether [a couple] had been in a relationship for year' since there is 'no official or recognized form'' of domestic partnership agreement in Rhode Island."
Ooooh, you're good, Gov. You've caught us. Our days of making fun-filled funeral arrangements in Rhode Island, and paying for the burial or cremation of any old body we want to, just for the hell of it, are over.
You can read about the veto here:
As the comments pointed out, there will probably be an override of the veto, but there's no overriding the hatred that led to it ... couched, as it was, in good intentions about family and tradition.
One of the many places that Carcieri's argument falls apart is that, in many cases, we're all we've got. For some of us, there is no family who wants anything to do with us, dead or alive. Others of us have families waiting in the wings for just such an occasion so they can punish our partners. Some of us have families from whom the only protection we and our partners have is each other. We don't want our screwed up families making the decisions our life partners should be making. Oh, silly me, that's the point, isn't it? To stand between us and those basic rights we want.
I've been wracking my brain, but I can't think of any group of people in the United States who were prevented by law from burying their dead. If we are to have no rights in life, can we not, at the very least, be afforded some small measure of dignity when we're dead?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)