Reticulated Radical

Facebook meme, author unknown

But seriously, I would like to know. What is so radical about my political beliefs? What I want from our government? The decency and civility I expect from elected and appointed leaders who are supposed to represent all of us? What part of what I believe is so revolutionary?

Yes, I do yearn for equality for all people. No exceptions. Is that radical?

I also think one billion dollars is more than enough for anybody, and any income over that should be taxed at about 90%. That leaves 100 million dollars a year for the poor billionaire, which I would gladly trade for my annual income if they have a problem with it. Or maybe that extra wealth should be distributed to workers who don't make a billion, or even a million, dollars a year so they can spend it on .... oh, I don't know. Food and housing and an annual vacation. I think every senator and every president should have to live for one year on my annual income before taking office. Just one year. No? Why not? If you want to represent me, get a feel for how I live. How is that radical and not just common sense?

I don't want people to go hungry or to be without decent medical care, including dental and vision. I want good roads, well supported fire and police departments, safe schools with a low teacher/student ratio, accessible upper education (including training in so-called blue-collar trades) that doesn't require taking out student loans that are more than a mortgage, and a bottle of wine a chicken or bowl of beans and quinoa on every table.

I want politicians and religious leaders to stay out of my vagina and my uterus. I want to lower the abortion rate by providing kids with honest, thorough sex education; supporting poor mothers with childcare and food and a decent wage; and opening more Planned Parenthood clinics.

How am I a radical? Honestly, how? I'm practically Jesus's eccentric, lovable aunt.

Do you think I'm radical?

Don't buy wine from a Facebook ad

 

I almost fell for it, my friends. The ubiquitous Facebook ad. I almost completed the order.  I took the fucking quiz. I even gave out my information: email, address, phone number. I was one click away from PayPal with my finger on the button when I noticed. The price for my six bottles of wine was not $29.95 as the ad promised. It was $39.95. I heard the voice of reason in my head, Back away from the cheap wine with the free delivery. It's another scam. Yes, even at $39.95 it's a reasonable price for 6 bottles plus free shipping, but that's not the fucking price they said it would be in the ad!

I closed the window.

And then the emails started coming in. Every single day the offer for 6 bottles of wine for $3.33/bottle plus free shipping. I deleted them. And then I got the email from Philip James, who claims to be the founder of the company, and I couldn't resist answering him. I mean, how often do you get to go straight to the office on the top floor without even asking? Here's my letter to Philip James, founder of Firstleaf wines, along with my warning to you: Don't be tempted by the Facebook ads. In fact, add the Facebook Purity extension to your Chrome browser and you'll never have to see another Facebook ad again.

Here's the thing, Philip James. I went to your site from Facebook where your ad offered 6 bottles of wine for $29.95. I went through the entire quiz, but when I got to the checkout, I was going to be charged $39.95, a price that, while fair, certainly isn't what was advertised. That extra $10 caused my trust in your company, and I suppose in you, Philip James, to plummet. I returned to Facebook where I commented on my experience. Someone from Firstleaf responded a couple of days later and told me I should contact your customer service. I don't think that's really my responsibility, do you, Philip James? I suspect a good number of people just went ahead and paid $10 more, either because they didn't remember what the cost was supposed to be or because they didn't notice the price difference, or because of reasons I'm not willing to worry about myself. Good for you if you can squeeze 10 extra dollars from unsuspecting and trusting new customers. Excellent scam, and then they'll find themselves subscribed to a much more expensive subscription service as well. I see what you're doing there.

I am not one of those customers though. I do not trust you now. I do not believe you will sell me 6 bottles of wine for $3.33/bottle and live up to your guarantee that I will like them or you will .... I don't know. Refund my three bucks and change? Send me a different brand and try again? I didn't read the fine print. I don't for a minute believe in your promises. I wish I did. I do love my wine. A smooth, chilled buttery Chardonnay paired with a bag of Lays potato chips can make me absolutely giddy. Almost better than sex, am I right? Although why choose? I even write about my love of wine on my blog in posts titled "If we were sharing a bottle of wine ...." During the pandemic, several of my more loving friends have dropped off a bottle or two of Chardonnay on my front porch because they would hate for me to run out. Alas, the pity is that I have run out -- hence my stupid foray to your website from Facebook. Never trust a Facebook ad, Philip James. Learn from my experience. I can live without wine much easier than I can live with being scammed though. I adore it, but I'm not married to it.

So much as I would love to pay you $3.33/bottle for 6 bottles of wine and find them eventually delivered for free to my front door -- Sweet Jesus who made the water into wine, that is a first-world luxury! -- something doesn't smell quite right here. This is my long way of telling you I'm going to have to put a cork into our relationship, in spite of your tempting offers.

Cheers,

Reticula

And that, my friends, is that. I'll never learn if Philip James, founder of Firstleaf, did indeed choose the most delectable $3.33 bottles of wine I've ever gulped sipped. I'll never answer my door and sign for those six bottles of freely shipped wine and chill one down to drink with a bowl of buttered popcorn on my porch some cool early fall eve, possible with a socially distanced friend. I am, in fact, drinking water and looking forward to watching my boyfriend James Spader in an episode of Blacklist after I hit publish on this post, which will probably be about as exciting as it gets around here for a while.

How about you? Any Facebook ad experiences? Ever fall for a ModCloth ad? Some exciting new tool that costs 1/3 the price on Amazon? Ever tried to get a decent color of Overtone, only to find out all the good colors are always sold out? What's your Facebook ad story?

Maybe I should buy my own Facebook ad. I'll offer to write angry letters to Facebook scammers for .... let's start at $25 for the first letter and $40 after that for the monthly epistolary subscription. I think I've found my niche.

Have typewriter, will rant.

You know you want it. So will your friends and relatives. Think ahead. Christmas is coming and you won't even have to put on your mask and leave your house. I'll run a special special just for readers. You are welcome. Cheers. XOXO

The weight of COVID-19

I'm so jealous of people in movies and on TV shows. They go to bars and sit close on bar stools. They go on cruises and cross-country trips. They eat in restaurants and choose how their steaks are cooked and sample the wine. They cuddle up with each other on the couch, and even though I can literally remember the exact day I last did that with someone other than Coraline (my 9-year-old granddaughter who lives with me), I can barely remember how it feels. I know I will never do it again with that person, but I really hope I will do it with someone again some day. They meet new lovers and have one-night stands, and honestly, I haven't done that in literally decades, a one-night stand, but I still want the fucking option, because now I wish I'd done it more often. (OK, I also wish I could guarantee the sex would be at the very least acceptable, and at the best good, and we all know that's not usually true for women, and that's why I didn't do it often, but I digress .... except to say, I suppose it could happen and now I'll never know.) And they have family dinners around a big table where they laugh and fight and maybe they drink too much, but they always compliment the cook. They put their heads together when they laugh, and they touch each others hands tenderly. They ride in cars together. And, oh my god, they hug. And kiss. I can hardly bear to watch two people sharing a first kiss. I mean, it was hard enough before, but at least it was a possibility before.

When I think of all the times I've taken spontaneous physical closeness for granted ... I wonder if I ever will again. Assuming, of course, I will ever experience it again.

In real life I see people acting like the pandemic doesn't exist and I think, fuck it. Why should I give up some of the best human interactions when odds say I won't get that sick even if I get it. I'm a woman. I have type O blood. I'm in pretty good shape, and I'm not that far into the dangerous age group. Yes, I could stand to lose some weight, but I don't have any health issues. Why shouldn't I hug my 2-year-old grandson who cries because he can't come into my house and hang out with me? We miss snuggling up on the couch, reading books and watching Youtube videos of trains. Why shouldn't I hug my son when I see him? Why shouldn't I have a big karaoke party like I do every other summer, with the windows open and the wine flowing, and the songs sung until the wee hours of the next morning? I could be dead in 2 months anyway, because Coraline is in a situation with people who refuse to social distance, and I can't prevent it. Will I die having never hugged my baby grandson again? Or my son? Or my close friends, who are my chosen family?

My friend Jay told me tonight about a former colleague who's been on a ventilator since some time in July. He recently succumbed to the virus. He was 49 years old. What would he have given for one more hug from his wife or husband, if he had one? Or his kids? His mother? And if more people had taken this seriously months ago, would he still be alive? If other people weren't so fucking selfish, would he still be alive?

That's what I come back to every time I have the urge to say, "Fuck this shit. I'm going to live my life. We're all going to die anyway..." I come back to all the people who wouldn't be dead now, and who wouldn't be permanently disabled or chronically ill, if we'd had leadership who followed the protocols that kept us safe from other deadly incurable viruses, like Ebola. I'll bet if you live in the US you don't know anybody who died from Ebola. If all of us had followed those protocols for COVID-19 and done our duty as good citizens of the country, the world, and put up with just a couple of months of sheltering in ... 

But we didn't. And I can't take risks that might have disastrous consequences for my family and friends just because I miss life as it was. I'm not that selfish. Or maybe I'm just not a sociopath. I can't keep all of them safe .... actually, as of this week I can't keep any of them safe. But I can do everything I can to make myself safe around them and to keep myself safe, because there are people who depend on me and even who care if I'm OK.

As for the people who won't, fuck them. And if it's you, fuck you. Safety needs are the second tier on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Way below, and thus more important than, eating at a restaurant and drinking beer at a bar. Way below graduation parties and birthday parties and sports and packing into elevators.

I hope I'm preaching to the choir here. I hope you're pumping your fist in agreement and wishing you could hug me, but choosing not to. I hope you're able to keep yourself and your family safe, because I know a lot of people have to work among selfish sociopaths who refuse to cover their snotty noses. (I had to go to court twice last week, and I saw a lot of people showing their stupid noses and refusing to cover their ugly faces.) And I know a lot of you can't keep your children home and safe for various reasons. It's really hard when you want to protect them and you can't.

None of this is easy. But if you're just choosing not to do the best you can because you can't be inconvenienced by a deadly virus, then fuck you. Put on a mask and grow the fuck up. Stay 6 feet apart and grow the fuck up. If my 9-year-old granddaughter can do it, because she doesn't want to make one of her friends or family members sick, so can you.

That was an entire digression. I'm bringing it back. Has anybody else struggled with watching people on TV and in movies? Have you shouted at the screen, "Back up! Six feet! Where's your fucking mask, you moron? People are going to die because of you!" I mean, can anybody even enjoy porn any more? This fucking virus has ruined everything!

Stay safe and stay well, my friends.

Monday, Monday. Can't trust that day...

Monday was a rough day. I was bullied and I was lied about on Monday. And I can't write the story here, so I'll talk about the other side of Monday. People who don't owe me a thing blessed me with incredible love and support on Monday.

My daughter-in-law Dakota, who is simply the best daughter-in-law ever, took Coraline and my 2-year-old grandson Cassius Danger (whom I haven't even hugged since March) on a socially distanced (because she cares about Coraline) hike while I was in court getting custody. And Coraline didn't worry so much for a while, because she was having a good time exploring an abandoned house and hiking in the woods with people she loves and who love her and have always been there for her. And who care enough about her to socially distance no matter how hard it is to not give a worried little girl a hug and a snuggle. It was more than enough.

Shortly after we got home a former student who's from Moldova stopped by to pick up some sweet corn I was selling for a farmer I know (another story), and she brought Coraline and me delicious Russian chocolates and oatmeal cookies. I didn't even know there was a Russian grocery here, but there is and once it's safe, she's going to go there with me and tell me about Russian food.

I picked up the mail and there was a package from another friend from back in the olden days when I homeschooled my kids and we had just discovered the internet (who remembers Prodigy and AOL?). She sent me 4 ceramic affirmation stones and a money order to help pay for a used Trek bicycle I bought Coraline last week. I knew she was sending something, because she told me to expect a package, but I didn't expect such generosity. Yeah, I cried. I'm a sap.

Other friends sent me texts and messages and checked in on me to make sure I was OK. I'm not, but their support makes me feel not so alone. Once I got Coraline to bed, I did an hour of yoga and meditation opened a bottle of wine my friend Maria gave me for my birthday last month and a bag of Clancy's potato chips Dakota dropped off the other day (because I still haven't been to the grocery store since March) and watched a documentary about buskers. I've always wanted to busk, but I'm not that good. I don't think people would toss their coins and bills in my guitar case unless maybe they wanted me to stop playing. I'm reading a book about a guy who busks with a manual typewriter and writes a poem for anybody who needs one and they give him what they can or what they think it's worth. Maybe I need to busk with a typewriter instead of a guitar. I digress ....

I want to be able to write specifically about what's happening, but I don't dare. And that pisses me off because it's my story and as Anne Lamott says

I'm sorry, Anne Lamott. I don't have the courage -- or maybe the stupidity -- to tell this story while it's happening. But someday. Someday I will just for myself. Just to keep the record straight for those who wonder.

And in the meantime I will simply say that being the hero in a story doesn't mean you win like it does in the movies and books. Real life is 20fucking20 and I wouldn't get through it if I didn't have these blessings to count. These many blessings. I'm going to have to work hard to pay all this forward. I look forward to finding those opportunities though.

Do you have stories you can't tell? You can tell them to me. I can't tell all of mine -- nobody does -- but I can listen. One thing 2020 has taken away is the random encounter with strangers who have a story to tell, at least for people like me who are practicing safe living.

One final thought: Heroes wear masks. Heroes keep the rest of us safe by social distancing. Heroes know when to put others before themselves. Be a hero, even if heroes don't always win.

Oh for a road trip

Maybe I need to stop watching TV. I keep seeing things on TV that make me want to do those things and I can't because fucking COVID. Like I was watching In the Dark, which I think if you like reading this blog you would like because it's dark and sarcastic and it makes you want to drink. But in the 4th episode Murphy, the blind (not in real life) star of the show goes on a road trip. Oh, how I love a road trip. And she gets stuck in a bathroom stall and has to crawl under the door of the stall, which is a lot scarier when you're blind I would imagine, but is massively scarier to consider during fucking COVID. Otherwise it would just make a funny story, but not now. And then they actually stop at a diner. And I could smell the old grease and coffee and pancake syrup and the ghost of cigarette smoke and hear the ting of forks against plates and the overlapping voices of people telling their stories. And I could just taste a big bite of juicy burger with lettuce and tomato and ketchup and mustard and mayo and some fat greasy fries dipped in more ketchup and fuck COVID I was there with the backs of my thighs stuck to the red plastic bench seat and the waitress (server ... whatever) asking me if I wanted more coffee. Only I wasn't there and I won't be there for a long time. And now I'm thinking about eating a chocolate malted milk shake with a long spoon, and they leave the extra in the metal cup so you don't waste any, and a piece of pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. God I'm full.

But that's from a glass of wine and a bowl of wavy potato chips, which I ate alone on my couch as I watched Murphy on her road trip and wished I'd gone on more myself when I had the chance. And I'm not even going to start in on the sex ....

What do you miss?