Odd Observations from a Skewed Perspective
Follow suit. Especially bathing suits.Archive for Flotsam & Jetsom
Beneath the Boards
Stretched out
With tears in my hair
The abyss of blue
gaped, naked in its
haughty mocking
Wide and empty.
its pale maw wrenched
of ether and viscera
where no beam crested
no forgotten dream lost
and I felt tell-tale in
my heart, the desire
to rend and tear
to end existence
to save those that I love
the pain of knowing me
If only I could rape the
fabric of being
with the careless slash of my fingertips
if only I had it in me
to be so cruel
to be so courageous
to know which hand in the dark
will lead me out
or lead me under
Yearning for an answer
for the dance between
the yin and the yang
to end the tick tick ticking
of my tears
falling in my hair
More to the story
I do
Not care
if
Your totem
is the
Great Ursine
Of the Olde People
And you were
Born under
The seventh Sun
In the House of
The rising Moon
Under Sagittarius’s
Left
butt
cheek …
Do not approach the bear.
Coordination or the lack thereof
Mother didn’t name me Grace.
There’s probably a very good reason. It is likely that in my mother’s hazy twilight memory of my birth I tumbled from her womb with all of the panache of a baby giraffe. She might have thought, in that demerol induced moment, that this child, this girl child, is no cygnet given to seamless and striking beauty. Nope. Not she.
In my subsequent and wholly unintentional trips to the ER for stupidly preventable injuries (one such acquired while there in the ER waiting room), I continued to test my mortality with mundane weapons of mass destruction.
You know, like a spoon? In my defense, it was a serrated grapefruit spoon.
So, when my daughter informed me today that she was wounded by corn dog, I knew that adage about apple’s and trees had something invariably to do with it.
I’m sorry, child. You never had a chance.
The power of pedicures.
“Girl, what is up with your toenails?”
Allow me to explain. I’m not exactly girly. In fact, other than breeding, I rather suck at being a typical, processed American female. As a child I was always up a tree, as an adult I aspire to dig holes for a living, sift dirt and play with the tinkertoys of yestercenturies. Not until my thirties, have I learned to successfully apply the tribal warpaint of the average American woman. Foundation, blush and shadow are adequately, not artfully, applied and the jury is still out on liquid eyeliner. Some days I can pull off the look; other days I’m fair certain I’m just Pennywise with boobs.
Also, I am a Floridian. 99.5% of my days are spent barefoot. Yes. I am aware of the risks. I have my own private nag nurse that informs me constantly.
On this day, after not seeing (and speaking little) in the past seven years, my cousins do not greet me with fond hellos and hugs and how you’ve beens.
Nope. Not in my family. That would be too predictable.
So quickly was I ushered into a seat and had my feet seized that I was more than a little dizzy. They fawned over the disastrous state of my toenails (are you seeing velociraptors yet?), buffed and scraped and cleaned and polished. Greetings come in several flips and flavors, quite often entailing food and whether or not someone had eaten. Today, it was feet. The state of life and affairs was exchanged over a little loving personal care that I rarely offer myself. By the time my wiggling little piggys were all glossy and colorful shades of femininity, the seven years had fallen away as if they’d never been, drying in the sun like an afternoon shower. There were smiles and laughs enough to crack my face, and I remembered what it was like to be a part of a larger group of shared blood.
You may be surprised to know, that I am a rather black sheep. I know, I know, right?! Who me?
For whatever reason, by virtue of blood or bone or deed unknown, I’ve not shared in that extended family since my mother’s passing. A little laughter, sunshine, and nail polish did much to resurrect that connection in me.
I have big tits and I cannot lie
No, no really. I have a big rack and I suck at lying. The truth is most often all over my face like a money shot. So, when I say I wore my astonishment today, you can comically envision a dropped jaw, gaping maw gathering flies and wide eyed capture in your dutifully exercised minds eye.
When I say I have a large pair of fun balloons, I’m not kidding. I’m sporting a set of H’s, much to the dismay of my back and bra straps. Lingerie shopping is a nightmare of expensive specialty shops and experimental online ordering. I’m well versed in the art of tasteful sideboob and creative cleavage.
Today, while puttering about my local ultra mega mart (no I’m not telling where… They’re not paying me) I was stopped, quite in my tracks, by huge tracts of land far more sizeable than my own. I know that they exist, but to me, they’re blue whales. I’ve seen them in pictures, not so much in my immediate vicinity. These puppies were so large she was unable to push her cart without resting her arms atop them, forcing her elbows outwards at, what looks to me, an uncomfortable position. Territory leaked from its confines like slow moving lava down Kilauea and shivered with the squeaky punctuation of her cart vibrating in her hands as she moved along.
How many hooks and eyes of aircraft grade steel does it take to hold those upright? Are there thirty seven straps criss crossing her shoulderblades just to keep her upright? When I finally shook myself from embarrassing shock, I felt a profound empathy. If it was difficult to find and use clothing appropriate to my body shape, her difficulty must be tripled. If my jubblies are a hassle, hers must be positively delinquent.
Ha. I just made myself laugh at the idea of delinquent pec pillows. Also, I’m just trying to get in one more breast euphemism.
Gifts
Hands we are given
We press together in prayer
We lift others in hope
Blood we are given
We pound in joy
To spill and be spilt
Lessons we are given
To learn or to lose
What prayer cannot solve
We clench our hands
And blood sings
Conspiracy, Cancer, and Human Experiments … Oh my!
Food is essential.
I’m not saying this just because I like food. Well, I do like food. A lot. Like, a stalk your refrigerator in the dark of night kind of relationship. However, I am fortunate and count my blessings daily that I have consistent access to a diet that is (potentially) healthy and diverse. So long as I don’t try to subsist on wine and dark chocolate alone, I should live to a ripe old age. Right?
Perhaps not. A mother’s diet during conception is scientifically linked to the behavior in the DNA of her unborn. I have mentioned before that my family hails from Puerto Rico where it has been muttered amongst them that Monsanto had been pushing their recombinant growth hormone experiments during the 40s.
I became curious regarding the validity of this claim and began to mine the internet for clues. It seems as though Big Chem has been playing diety in the islands for some time, alongside the US Department of Defense. Human experimentation included injecting patients with cancer cells, forced birth control and female sterilization.
Hormones in the milk production is not news, but it is the extent of which, in rural Puerto Rico, affected the surrounding population. Namely, my ancestry. According to family, my mother developed secondary sexual characteristics when young girls should be playing with dolls. Being noticed in an overly sexual manner in a markedly gender biased culture gave her issues with self image and worth, sapped her self confidence, and forever impacted her self esteem.
Irregardless of the psychological effects of early onset puberty, the far reaching physiological ramifications are still being discovered. In the 80s, Dr. Carmen A. Saenz published, in the Journal of the Puerto Rico Medical Association, on “precocious puberty” displayed in four year old girls (some boys as well) with breasts, menstruation, and overdeveloped sexual organs. In most cases, the symptoms receded after the children stopped drinking the local milk.
My mother and grandmother both died due to complications regarding cancer. What is the validity, if any, of the Monsanto growth hormone experiment claim? Would the epigenic consequence of these experiments be disastrous? Is there a ghost in the genes haunting mine, and subsequently my childrens’, future? If so, this needs to be known.
These are the questions I’m posing the Internet. The evidence is out there, but how and who could help me find it?
Happiness is a Perspective Away
I say this a lot. It’s one of many mantras that get me through the day (or even those few minutes.) One thing that has always brought “Capital J” Joy into sharp relief was grief. A recent death in my family summoned up a lot of things I’d thought were buried. I, in my arrogance, believed I could overcome such trivialties as human emotion, thereby compartmentalizing and remaining competant during a time in need. I didn’t do half a bad job, if that entails not having to come up with bail money. However, concepts like family, duty, secrets and silence all spark in the dry bushes around funerals. So many raw, exposed nerves are subject to shock, often with terrible repercussions.
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequence” – W. I. Thomas
My Latin heritage is blatent during these times. I see these episodes like Wild America, and Steve Irwin (Don’t ask. Rest his soul) is narrating the comings and the goings of my extended family as they do the dance of death and decision making. Hordes of lamenting women descend upon hospitals and then retreat, wailing. Someone is fainting, someone is fighting (profanity and fisticuffs – let us be real, we do hail from New York), someone is pleading, loudly. We have yet to reach the actual funeral by this time. Between those points lies the unearthed remains of rumor and reality, the reopened wounds and the stages that consume us all. There were profound moments of reconnection and exhaustion in turns, and more tears than I’d thought possible. All of the missed opportunities had reached up and grabbed me by the throat. However, between courier and counselor, I got to be a cousin; between the tears, I found joy in a different perspective.
“and Joy is Everywhere;
It is in the Earth’s green covering of grass;
In the blue serenity of the Sky;
In the reckless exuberance of Spring;
In the severe abstinence of gray Winter;
In the Living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
In the perfect poise of the Human figure, noble and upright;
In Living;
In the exercise of all our powers;
In the acquisition of Knowledge; in fighting evils… Joy is there Everywhere.” by Rabindranath Tagore
There was a minute that I was surrounded by the chaos of my family. Music, children, voices – lots of them. Lots of loud, loud voices. No one told me I spoke too loudly. From the food, to the family, it was a taste of home I’d thought I’d lost when my mother had passed on due to advanced stage breast cancer. There was a lot I thought I’d lost when she left, but that is another story.
I wept into my arroz con carnitas. I admit it.
So much I had missed. New members, old members, family recipes, histories and escapades. There was laughter. There was drinking. Things were learned that couldn’t be unlearned. Life was blossoming anew. It was a shitty reason for a family reunion, but we were there and we were trying to reach beyond generations of history. I think we succeeded.
Despite any specificity of belief, whether a great beyond awaits us or dwells within us, that glimmer of joy helped me hold on to my percieved reality for a few more minutes. Perspective was the gift of the life that left us behind, and while I rent this divine spark in me, I will use it to walk in joy. Thanks, Cuz.
Odd Observations from a Skewed Perspective 
What are you entitled to?
June 1, 2014 at 8:53 am · Filed under Commentary, Flotsam & Jetsom and tagged: #yesallwomen, culture, entitlement, feminism, gender, misandry, misogyny, power, society
The Internet is a firestorm after the horrific acts of a disturbed man I won’t glorify by typing his name. Not only are the gun control advocates up in arms, as always, but so is everyone with a vagina that has ever had to say “no.”
The response to the #YesAllWomen movement on Twitter is astonishing, as men and women everywhere relate their feelings on the misogyny and misandry that lives in American culture. The vast feminist outpouring of support from enlightened people refusing to apologize or further perpetuate the frightening “rape culture” that runs rampant is comforting but what about the other side?
#NotAllMen are brutal, violent, or even misogynists, and I (as an owner of a functioning vagina) understand this. I also understand that the development of this counter movement has its roots firmly entrenched in the perception of power (or the lack thereof).
Socially frustrated women of the past decades wrested control of their bodies, futures, and careers and carved themselves a piece of social power pie. For many more decades before that, such a delectable pie was reserved only for the External Plumbing half of the population. In the resulting years, men have seen that pie get gobbled up as women exerted their rights to say “no” to sexual advances, social pressures, and expectations and yes to freedoms and opportunities.
Men of today now see a reversal of that power structure, whether real or perceived, it is real in its consequence. Indoctrinated as children, men are expected to be sexually and financially powerful and successful. Fear of failure, of showing their fear, of the fear itself, seed themselves within the male psyche as a result. Such emotions can often manifest in anger and violence. Which is what we, as women, fear.
Fear of violation, being overpowered and helplessness drive the #YesAllWomen movement because all women have experienced these feelings. Is it male bashing? Perhaps to some, but it is not the overall sentiment. The chief complaint is reliant upon the idea of “entitlement.”
Is a man entitled to a woman’s body? Is a man entitled to sex? Allow me to exercise this: No, and no.
Alternately, is a woman entitled to a man’s mind? Is a woman entitled to forcibly changing a man’s mind? No, and most definitely no.
What are we entitled to? Not a damn thing. Every single aspect of human existence has to be striven for, fought for, mayhaps even died for. Every breath, smile, dollar bill has to be clawed into existence. The right to a voice? To vote? Freedom? How much blood has been spilt because we were “entitled” to be free? And now that we’re “entitled” to freedom, does that not mean freedom of hands, fingers, tongues and toes? Noooope.
As a species, humanity is not even entitled life. Death, disaster and disease care not for your enlightened (or not so enlightened) thinking. Humans have yet to discover how to stop the ravages of time upon our aging bodies, so we are not entitled even a moment to waste. We do not have that power to issue entitlement to ourselves, let alone the rest of the world.
The power struggle polarizes humanity. Men feel that power has been taken from them, and therefor must be regained in some means, whether sexually or not. Women feel that power is taken from them, and therefor must be regained in some means, whether sexually or not. Everyone wants a piece of the power pie, always perceiving the other side has the majority. The #YesAllWomen movement began the discourse with the personal stories of misogyny. #NotAllMen counters defensively but also serves to offer a voice piece for misandry, and the issues that men face, and that are just as worthy of discussion. Men do get raped, sexually harassed, and manipulated by women (#NotAllWomen do this!) and it is not acceptable.
Perhaps, in the aftermath of the internet phenomenon, we can utilize the information to tease out the insidious nature of (not so) hidden power struggles, and begin a working evolution towards real equality. Equality that is not only in the letter of the law, but felt in the hearts and minds of the people. We all have the power to do this. And each of us has the power to read and learn, or not.
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